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sincerely-sofie · 4 months

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Dadnoir Musings: The Fanfic

Lord help me I’m back on my nonsense. Finally making this monstrosity public.

Word count: 6,930-ish

Summary: Fragments of Dusknoir’s interactions with and thoughts on Kip and Twig (especially Twig) throughout the events of the game, leading up into the start of The Present is a Gift.

It was meant to be simple. He would travel back through a passage of time alone, the sableye making the journey separately to spread rumors of a renowned explorer before he'd quietly enter the areas that were handfed awe-inspiring stories of his exploits. He'd do a number of good deeds along the way to validate the rumors, and in doing so he would gain the loyalty and aid of an entire population in tracking down the grovyle and human that had gotten dangerously close to securing another time gear before vanishing entirely after their retreat.

He had heard reports of the grovyle being sighted in this time period. It was good news, certainly, to have reliable sources verify one another— but he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling he had at the reports. They always identified the grovyle, but never the human. Easily the most stand-out member of the trio of rebels— even moreso than the Legend in their ranks— and suddenly the only one unaccounted for. He didn't know much about humans and how hardy they were, but the grovyle’s habit of whirling her out of reach of whatever strikes were sent her way implied a distinct fragility— perhaps she'd been disposed of in the window of time that they'd lost track of the rebels.

He hoped that was the case. Everything would be so much simpler if it was. Still, he instructed the scouts to search more diligently for the human. He wasn't foolish enough to hope for much of anything anymore, and the fact that he found himself clinging to the idea of not having to execute the human himself left him wary.

Something wasn't right.

He entered the lively settlement of Treasure Town with a sense of dread weighing heavy on his shoulders.

***

His cover story gave him a particular level of sway over the local exploration guild. Not only did they eat up every word he said with an unmatched trustingness, they provided access to their outlaw reports and records of suspicious activity. There he was— the troublesome grovyle was reported enough times to give an area he was likely frequenting, but not an indication of his next move or where he'd hide away after brushes with danger. Dusknoir needed to wait and gather more information. The grovyle was rash— it wouldn't be long before he showed his hand.

In the meantime, Dusknoir would continue building Treasure Town’s trust in him.

That didn't prove very difficult. The townsfolk were exceptionally welcoming. They bore no doubt in his cover story. The Guild’s recruits were almost sycophantic in their hero worship, as were their elite, save for a team of two— and even then, the team that seemed wary of him appeared more cautious out of nerves than actual suspicion.

They were a young pair of recruits— much younger than the rest of their peers. Where the other recruits seemed at least well on their way to entering adulthood, these two were evidently the youngest apprentices in guild history. Team Venture was composed of a timid but eager mudkip and an odd charmander who seemed completely flabbergasted by basic social customs.

Kip was endearing in his overzealous enthusiasm— his excitement whenever Dusknoir interacted with him and his partner was palpable, and he introduced himself by name almost immediately upon meeting him. Another indicator of the two’s youth, then— he was so young he didn't quite grasp the finer details of when and where you should give your name. One might find the misstep offensive, but Dusknoir was flattered by the boy considering him such a close friend.

The charmander didn't give him a name. In truth, she didn't give him much of anything— she hung back when Kip and Dusknoir spoke, never really saying anything, just watching him with a confused look like she was trying to remember something long lost to time. She was a studious character— Kip didn't attend many of the workshops the Guild put on, but Charmander arrived early to and left late from every last one.

“She wasn't the one to ask to form a team together— honestly, she kind of rejected the idea at first,” Kip admitted to him while waiting for his partner to return from one such event, “but I think that now she likes exploring even more than I do!”

“Funny how things play out like that,” he replied.

“She's amazing. I'm so lucky to have met her. She's my best friend.”

He watched as the mudkip fidgeted happily with his scarf, a slight blush on his face. Ah. Definitely a bit of lilipuppy love on his end. He couldn't help his chuckle. “And how did you two meet?”

“Oh— um. She was passed out on the beach one day, but I thought she was dead when I found her and I— uh— I screamed so loud she woke up,” he stammered. “It wasn't a very cool way to meet, but I'm glad I got to meet her at all.”

“I'm sure any would react as you did were they to stumble upon a possible corpse.” His brow furrowed. “Why was she passed out on the beach in the first place?”

“She doesn't know. She's got amnesia, if you haven't heard— she doesn't remember anything about herself before waking up on the beach. Well, anything but her name and how she used to be a human.”

“What?”

Kip startled at the sharpness of his tone. “She… she doesn't remember anything but her name, and how she used to be a human? Is everything okay, Dusknoir, sir?”

It couldn't be. This was a coincidence. He hoped desperately that it was a coincidence. If there was a human in the time he had traveled from, then there surely had to be humans in the time preceding it. This was another human, unrelated to the one that had evaded detection for the last year or so. It was a simple coincidence.

Kip watched him nervously.

“Apologies, I… I was simply caught off guard. Humans turning into pokemon is a concept that I thought was only the stuff of fairy tales. That combined with humans having been long extinct makes your story seem a bit peculiar.”

“Oh! Yeah, it does seem strange, doesn't it? I don't know if she's misremembering or not, but she's pretty intent on how she wasn't a charmander before waking up on the beach. She took a while to learn how to walk, though, and she doesn't know how to control fire like a normal charmander— so it makes me feel like she's telling the truth.”

Dusknoir hummed, lost in thought. Kip ran off to greet his partner when she exited the meeting hall for whatever seminar was put on that week, and she caught him in a hug and showed him a stack of notes she'd taken during the seminar. Kip stifled a laugh as he looked over the pages— Charmander demanded he tell her what was so funny, and he meekly explained that her spelling was even worse than her handwriting.

“Dude! Not cool! I didn't even know how to read any of this stuff last year. I'd like to see you write a paper in English after barely getting any time to learn it!”

They wandered off, chattering all the way, leaving Dusknoir to recall the mannerisms of the human who had all but dropped off the face of the planet and recognize their echoes in the child resting her hand over her friend’s shoulders as they walked to the guild dorms.

It was a coincidence. Simply that.

(The thought that the human he'd been trying to… dispatch for so many years was only as old as Charmander sat like a block of ice in his belly.)

***

He tried to get more information on this mysterious recruit, and his efforts to find any background beyond when she first arrived at the Guild yielded nothing. It was as if Charmander never existed before appearing on that beach— no records of her prior residence, birth, or heritage were to be found— no one had ever even known she existed before Kip brought her into town. He wondered if it was a conspiracy between them— that the girl was playing dumb and the boy was lying to cover up what he knew— but couldn't place any stock in the theory. Kip was as guileless as they come, and he had seen Charmander attempt to hide surprises from her partner— she was an atrocious liar. They were genuine in their cluelessness.

He learned more that personified the child than he would have liked while posing faux-idle questions to the townsfolk.

(“That lil’ charmander girl is the sweetest thing. She's got the etiquette sense of an overturned stump, make no mistake, but she means no harm by it, y’hear? Keeps coming by to my storehouse to hide presents for her friends— asked for a second lockbox and everything so her partner wouldn't know she was collecting up his favorite things to give him later on.” The woman laughed. “She loves playing with my little one, too— it's the funniest thing, seeing her try to play with her. It's like she thinks she's made of glass. I keep telling Charmander she can be a bit rougher, but she still treats the girl so gingerly!”)

(“Ah! Charmander, you say? Yes, yes, she's quite the character. Loves wordplay, that one. Sharp mind, if a little dense at times. Always asking about the finer points of merchantry. If she weren't already apprenticed at the Guild, we'd consider taking her on ourselves!” A pause as his brother interjected with his own comment. “Ah! I'd forgotten about that. She's made such a habit of paying for those two’s groceries. She's always so mischievous about it— almost treats it like a prank. Keep in mind she's never told those boys or their mother who keeps paying for their things, and she's sworn us to secrecy about it— you'll not tell a soul either, yes?”)

(“Charmander is… well, she's one of our most promising recruits, alongside her partner. I've had my misgivings— those two have shown their immaturity at the worst of times, to the point of near disaster, mind you! If it weren't for Team Skull, I shudder to think of what would have happened… But they've got good hearts. Charmander started out one of the worst-performing recruits in the Guild’s history, but she's made leaps and bounds of progress. It's easier to look past her age when you see the stacks of pages of notes and research she produces— though it's significantly harder when you see the severity of her spelling! She gave me a paper where she'd listed several questions about expedition protocol, once, and I was appalled by the sight!” A nervous flutter of wings. “Everything she writes is phonetic! Horrifically so! Her handwriting is no better. It's to the point I've debated calling on a tutor to stay at the Guild for a time to provide lessons. I shudder to think of a recruit ever rising to the point she and her partner have with such deplorable writing skills. Should I ever meet her parents, I have strong words to give on the importance of education!”)

It was a coincidence. It had to be. She was a former human who had arrived in town at the same time that the fugitive human had disappeared, but that wasn't enough to be incriminating. He didn't want to think about the alternative. In his questioning the townsfolk, all he learned was how utterly normal this child was— how she had the same quirks and charms as any youth would, despite her constant efforts to seem mature and keep up with her older peers.

She and her partner asked him if he, in all his travels, knew about the cause of her dizzy spells and visions. There it was— the Dimensional Scream, and another nail in Charmander’s coffin.

It had to be a coincidence. If it wasn't, then this child's blood would need to stain his hands if he wanted to continue on himself, and he was starting to doubt how much he wanted to live a life with that fact haunting him.

It would have been easier if it was just death he was facing. He could handle the thought of dying, grim as it was. But he faced no simple looming threat of death, but one of complete and utter erasure from existence— if the grovyle succeeded, it would be as if he never lived in the first place. The same fate would be dealt to Charmander. If the existential terror wasn't enough, Dialga’s visceral descriptions of what erasure felt like were unsettlingly vivid. Dusknoir would simply have to remind himself that an execution would be swifter, less painful— even, in a twisted way, more merciful than what Grovyle was so resolutely seeking.

She wouldn't suffer, and he wouldn't be stricken from all of time and space. It would be a twofold victory, grim as it was— if it ever came to that. He didn't even know if this was the exact same human who could discern Dimensional Screams. All signs pointed to her, but if he refrained from learning anything more, he could claim ignorance. He could leave her in this time and simply dispose of the grovyle, and she would remain as she was, blissfully unaware of her origins.

He just had to stop asking questions. That's all he had to do.

Charmander came up to him one day with a newfound hesitancy in her posture. “Hey, so— I really appreciate you telling me about the Scream a while back. And how you came to help me and Kip when the Manectric Tribe came along, and you scaring off Team Skull, and all that, too.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“I don't really get Pokemon stuff, but I know names are pretty important, like, as a trust thing.”

“That they are.” Don't. I don't want to hear—

“So I figured I could give you mine? As a symbol of, like, gratitude or whatever.”

“There’s no need.” Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it, don't tell me anything, I don't want to know—

“Nah, I don't mind.” She smiled widely, puffed out her chest, set her fists on her hips. “It's Twig! Nice to meet you, or whatever you're supposed to say when you… um…” Her prideful posture fell, giving way to concern. “What's with the face? Sorry if I messed that up, I don't really know how things are supposed to— I just thought…”

Of course. Of course he was wrong to hope. When was he ever right to cling to such things? It was her, and he'd known it all along, but he stubbornly refused to accept it.

“I'm sorry, man. You don't have to look so upset.”

“Whatever would give you that idea?”

“You're crossing your arms to hide the fact you're frowning.” She furrowed her brow. “I'm not stupid, Dusknoir.”

You are, though. You're so, so foolish, and you don't even realize it. I could have moved on from here without ever confirming who you were, and you ruined it.

“Apologies,” he murmured tersely. “I'm just a tad overcome. I need a moment.”

“Oh. Yeah, no worries.” She awkwardly reached out and patted the back of his hand as she passed. “I’m gonna go and… I dunno, do some sentry duty. Sorry again if I messed stuff up.”

You should be. You did. Legends and Life, you'll regret this even more than I do when the time comes.

***

It was rather jarring to see the same human that Grovyle had been so determined to keep out of harm’s way laid so low by his own hand. Dusknoir’s appearance at Crystal Cave sent the fugitive packing, and he was left to tend to an injured Team Venture.

Twig shoved his hands away as he assessed the damage. “Don't! Don't, I'm fine— Help Kip! He's— I don't know if he's going to…” Her voice broke, and his heart followed suit at the pitiful sound. “Please. You've got to help him.”

It took a moment to locate the mudkip in question— Twig had evidently been making efforts to lead the fight away from where he had collapsed behind a large stalagmite, unconscious.

He had seen injuries, he had seen gore— but he had never seen so much of them on such a small body.

Twig wasn't overreacting in her fear of whether or not her friend would survive their encounter with Grovyle.

He knew enough first-aid to ensure Kip didn't bleed out in the moment, but lacked the supplies necessary to do much else. Twig was bundling Kip up in her arms before he admitted as much to himself, starting the trek out of the mystery dungeon on shaking legs— and only managed several strides before falling to her knees with a pained groan. She didn't protest when he lifted her into his own arms and resumed the journey with more haste than she could muster in her state— only curled tightly around her partner, to the point that her tail brushed her jaw, promising over and over again that he would be okay.

***

Chimecho received the two recruits and administered the care that Dusknoir was unable to provide, ushering him out of the room so she would have room to work in the cramped Guild infirmary. Left in the silence of the main floor alongside the unsettled guild members who had gathered together when they learned of Team Venture’s state, he found himself standing before the infirmary door, numb. Slowly, the guild members dispersed, the quiet tension in the air left unbroken as they awaited news of their friends’ fates. Chatot remained, noisy in his silence as he alternated between pacing and leafing through paperwork that he never gave more than a few moments of attention at a time. Dusknoir eventually had the sense to seat himself a ways away from the infirmary door and began sifting through the events of the last few hours.

He hadn't pursued Grovyle. He had the opportunity to corner the fugitive— there were a number of dead ends in Crystal Cave, any of which he could have driven him into and had the upper hand in a confrontation where he might capture him— and he didn't take it. He squandered the perfect chance to finally do away with the greatest thorn in his side in favor of assisting another of the trio he'd been tasked with dispatching. He could only hope that Dialga didn't learn of his misstep— there would be hell to pay if he did.

He was pulled from his thoughts by Chatot’s startled squawk as he shot over to the infirmary door when Twig stepped onto the threshold, though not fully through, heavily bandaged and with a pronounced limp. “What are you doing up and about?! You need to remain in the infirmary until you've been given a clean bill of health! I won't have you running about jeopardizing yourself— think of— think of what horrors that would do for the Guild’s image! Get back in there immediately!”

Twig gave him a weary glare. “I'm not going to sit around and watch while Chimecho stitches Kip back into one piece. Move over, man.”

Chatot opened his beak to protest once more, but froze upon glancing over Twig's shoulder— catching an eyeful of Kip’s injuries, judging by the way his feathers flattened against his body in fear. “A-Alright, just this once, then. But sit down! You look faint. I don't want to have you falling and giving yourself a concussion on top of all this!”

“Pretty sure I already have a concussion, Chatot. I also can't sit down unless you let me through the doorway.”

Chatot complied, fretting over her until she laid down on the floor and set her legs up against the wall to combat her supposed faintness that Chatot was so worried about. “Dusknoir, I'm dreadfully sorry, but please keep watch over this recruit for a moment. Chimecho will no doubt need more material for sutures shortly— I must seek supplies in town.” He didn't wait for a response, simply shot up the ladder leading out of the guild in a flurry of wings and panic, leaving Dusknoir and Twig in an vacant chamber.

She closed her eyes, falling so still that she seemed to be asleep. Recalling her mentioning a concussion, he reached over to rouse her— but her sudden words made him freeze with his hand outstretched.

“Chimecho doesn't know if he's gonna make it.”

He couldn't muster a response to that.

“You’ve— you've been around, you know lots of stuff. You've probably seen injuries way worse than those. Kip’s— he's gonna be okay, right?” He watched as she opened her eyes, fixing him with a teary stare as she waited for an answer. “... Right?”

He couldn't look at her. “His injuries are severe,” he finally murmured.

She turned to stare at the ceiling. He did his best to ignore the way her breaths stuttered and hitched, turning into quiet hiccups and whines as she rolled over and shifted to press her back against the wall and cry into her knees. Distantly, he wondered how she managed to cry so quietly, even when every whisper of a sob shook her entire frame with its intensity. He intently avoided pondering what had motivated her to develop such a skill.

It wasn't easy to ignore an injured, distraught child weeping only an arms-length away from him. He found himself unwillingly reminded of the sableye when he first took them in— Twig's situation was different, but the end result was almost the same— a child left adrift and frightened in the face of tragedy. Where the sableye had each other, though, Twig was left to weep without five siblings to answer the slightest whimper with unflinching support. Her partner— her only true friend amongst the Guild, from the sound of things— was on death's door, unable to come to her aid and offer the same words of comfort she had repeated to him as Dusknoir brought the two back to the Guild.

Despite himself, he reached out and set his hand over her back. She stiffened under his palm, and he nearly pulled away, but she caught hold of his thumb on her shoulder and held his hand in place. Her tears continued. He didn't say anything when she curled up tighter and her sobs picked up in volume, too startled by the memory of one of the recruits describing something to him.

(“Twig really doesn't like being touched. Not most times, at least! One time I patted her on the back because she beat my best sentry duty record, and she whirled around and almost took off one of my petals! Like, oh my gosh, I totally freaked! Kip said that she barely lets anyone touch her— you've got to be a real close buddy for her to be okay with it, or else it really freaks her out— but I didn't think it was that bad! Eek!”)

He kept his gaze fixed on the opposite wall and tried not to think about how she felt bonier under his hand than one so young had any right to be.

***

Kip survived, adorned with a number of scars that would remain for all his remaining days as a mudkip. Twig was glued to his side during the days in which he was allowed to exit the infirmary and rest in the dorms, and she became his crutch whenever he struggled to walk about the Guild to build his strength back up after so long being bedridden. The other recruits flocked around the two and made their concern known, offering to help with anything they needed as they recovered.

Kip asked for help checking a particular book out of the Guild library and sending word to Chimecho that the numbing agent was working a bit too well, and that he couldn't feel the fin on his head whatsoever. Twig didn't ask for anything— suddenly every bit as stoney, stern, and stoic as Grovyle had appeared in confrontations once they were separated— and said little over the following days. When one recruit waddled up to her after a workshop with carefully written notes and an apology for how he couldn't write as many pages as she always did on account of how fast the lecturer spoke and how slow his paws were, though, she pulled him into a hug that he meekly returned.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

“Aw, shucks, it's really nothing! Don't mind it at all. I know how much you love those workshops. Me, though, I was lost as soon as the lecturer flipped the first page on her big ol’ chart thingy! You mind explaining how traps form in a mystery dungeon? She kept saying that it was important to know for this workshop, but I didn't go during the one where it was taught.”

She launched into a lecture of her own, more animated than he had seen her since her encounter with Grovyle, and Dusknoir was tempted to applaud the young man for so cleverly distracting her from her wounds.

***

With a trap laid for Grovyle, Dusknoir watched for the right moment to spring it. It didn't take long— the fugitive was gullible and impatient, a dangerous combination of traits that ensured Dusknoir wasn't left waiting for long.

Grovyle was secured— albeit perhaps roughed up a tad more than was totally necessary to capture him— and that meant he had to resolve the other loose end before he departed for his home era.

He called Team Venture forward, out from the back of the crowd where they always lingered. He only had to bring Twig closer, but to summon her alone would raise suspicions at this most critical of moments. She was slow to come up to the front of the crowd and made her way there leaning heavily on her partner when she finally appeared. Evidently, her refusal to rest and recover from her injuries had backfired, leaving her in a worse state than Kip was despite her having the lesser wounds at the beginning.

He only needed her. He could leave Kip behind and have a single child’s death weighing on him for eternity instead of two, if only they would stop clinging to each other for one measly second. He gave a speech describing his gratitude, waiting for the moment when she would shift her weight off of his side and onto her own two feet so he could grab her and be off— and there it was. He seized her in a hand and shot back into the passage of time, realizing too late that Kip was dragged along by her fistful of his scarf.

Great. Of course.

He caught hold of the boy when Twig’s own grip came loose and cursed whatever Legends were watching and no doubt laughing at his luck.

***

He really should have expected Grovyle would have another trick lying in wait before the execution. He'd hoped that Kip and Twig at least would remain unconscious for the act, but Grovyle's hissing and spitting curses his way roused them, and they were pulled along with his escape plan as a result. Dusknoir was going to kill him personally if things continued to sour thanks to him. When they had the three cornered— along with Celebi, even— he found himself possessed by the urge to twist the knife.

It was cruel to reveal Twig’s identity to Grovyle in order to stamp out any bit of resistance in him, but Dusknoir would be lying if he said it didn't give him some awful sense of catharsis to see the horrified guilt in his face— he finally realized just what he'd done by beating a child unconscious and nearly doing the same to a second one in Crystal Cave, and Dusknoir took a certain glee in his regret. Twig’s look of disgust at the reveal only drove the knife deeper. Good. He deserves it. He put out a hand and sent a shadow snaking along the ground, ready to take the wretch out—

— and Twig tackled Grovyle out of the way of the attack, putting herself in the range of the strike. He fumbled, dampening the worst of the blow before it hit her, but she still let out a sharp cry in response. Legends and Life, he would rather put the two youths out of their misery with something quick, but that was made difficult by their insistence to throw themselves in harm's way as living shields for the one target he wanted to suffer.

Fine, then. He reached out to snatch Kip up and snap his neck, but Twig surged into Dusknoir with such force she managed to throw him against a tree and lit a barrier of flame between them and her allies.

She kicked off of him, further dizzying him thanks to her using his eye as her chosen springboard, and landed ready to dash back to her group— but stopped short when she saw the long wall of fire between them.

(He'd never seen her use any sort of attack before that incorporated the flames she could manifest as a charmander— only ever using her fists, teeth, and even fallen branches to strike— and he suddenly recalled how he could count the hours at the Guild by how many times she'd let out a startled yelp when she'd see her own tail. Back then, he thought she'd simply never grown accustomed to an extra limb. It was with a bitter, weary laugh now that he realized she was afraid of fire.)

He reached out, hand outstretched to take her by the throat.

Kip sprang up from the ground that he had tunneled into and headbutted him hard, whirling around to douse the flames and shove his partner forward. “Come on, come on, we've got to get out of—!”

Grovyle snatched the girl up as he sprang for the passage of time, not even sparing her partner a second glance as he leveled Dusknoir with a deadly glare when he passed. Kip was only pulled along by Twig grabbing his scarf and pulling him into her arms as they darted into the passage of time, Celebi swiftly shuttering it and vanishing in a shimmer of air.

Lovely.

***

Grovyle hadn't told Twig what would happen to her if their efforts to restore Temporal Tower succeeded. Of all the things he'd done, this one failure to act was his most repulsive misdeed by far.

She was baffled by Dusknoir's question of whether she truly didn't fear erasure, looking to Grovyle for answers. He stuttered and stammered, resisting her request for the truth at first, and Dusknoir, for all his willingness to see his instructions to kill these two as just business a few seconds ago, concluded that it would be a lovely vacation to throttle Grovyle in particular.

One last attempt to dispatch Twig as kindly as he could was once again foiled— Grovyle passed on the burden of his mission to a child who just learned she was giving up her entire existence to change a future that was uncertain— and he forced Dusknoir into the passage of time.

***

Erasure was less painful than he expected. It was less like being ripped apart by every second he had lived and more like his very soul was slowly being brushed away, like he was falling asleep. Twig had gone through with her part, then. He hoped the event of her disappearance wasn't too frightening for her or Kip.

Dusknoir could feel himself slipping. He could barely summon the words as he asked, “Grovyle… My life… did it shine?”

Grovyle must have been just as exhausted as Dusknoir, but he smiled despite it. His hand shook as he reached out to grip his arm. His voice trembled with effort as he fought to speak. “Extraordinarily.”

It was a pitiful scrap of comfort— meaningless, really. But that simple response, combined with the sun rising behind the collapsed forms of his unlikely allies moved him to tears.

Okay. If this was how he was struck from all of time and space, it was okay. He would be able to accept it.

As dawn broke for the first time in decades gone uncounted, Dusknoir stopped clinging to the world about him, and let himself drift away completely.

***

To return to existence was unexpected. To be given a second chance at life by Dialga himself was even more unexpected. But perhaps most unexpected of all was how much he hated this bright future’s refusal to admit all of the terrors that had taken place on its soil.

Grovyle and Celebi felt similarly. The decision to immigrate to the Present was unanimous, heightened by Grovyle's late realization that if they'd been restored, Twig likely was as well— Celebi couldn't open a passage of time fast enough for his liking once the idea hit him, and he bolted through it the moment it was vaguely safe to traverse.

“… He's certainly eager to move in.”

“Dusknoir, dear, you know full well he's not leaping at the opportunity to pick out wallpaper.” She turned to the passage, face pensive. “It's been so long since I've seen them in this timeline… I'm almost afraid. How do I look? Are my antennae straight? Are my wings as dazzling as ever?”

He gave her a flat stare.

“You have no appreciation for beauty! Hmph!” She feigned anger for only a moment before glancing back at him, worried. “If you'd like a moment, Dusknoir, you can wait here and prepare yourself. I know you didn't part on the best of terms with our two little explorers.”

“I doubt they're very little anymore.”

“You're right! Oh my goodness, they must be full-grown by now… I'm going through, dear, but you come on out only when you're ready.”

He waited for a feeling of readiness to overtake him.

It never did.

All he could do was take a breath and enter the passage.

He was greeted by sunlight, dappled shadows, treetop canopies rustling overhead, and Twig's startled command for Kip to get behind her.

She was barely any taller, covered in scars he didn't remember her wearing when they last parted ways, and she had her fists balled up in front of her and ready to lash out the second he approached. Grovyle stepped forward and tried to explain, and her look of frightened fury gave way to confusion, then frustration.

“There's— No way. There's no way he did any of that. He's just trying to get our guards down again.” She cast a vicious glare his way. “What, was Primal Dialga a cover? Were you really working with Darkrai all along? Too bad, we beat your real boss months ago! Get out of here before I—”

Kip stepped forward, brushing aside his partner's threats with a smile. His words were sincere and simple. “I knew you were too nice to be faking it. All the times in Treasure Town, Amp Plains, Crystal Cave— I told you, Twig. C’mon, you owe me five-hundred poké!”

She sputtered for a moment as he simply held out a paw expectantly. She reached into her bag and begrudgingly slid a large coin into his waiting palm. He gave her a smug smile as Dusknoir looked between them.

“Do you two often bet on the intentions of those you meet?” He asked, unsettled by the well-practiced exchange.

“It’s a joke. Mostly. And we don't do it too much,” Kip answered.

He was scared to hear the answer he was certain he already knew. “And what started this routine between you?”

To his surprise, they didn't respond by pointing to him. Twig crossed her arms and murmured, surprisingly hesitant, “We got… um. Don't know if there's a specific word for it in Pokéspeak, but we thought we were talking to Cresselia, and it turned out it was very much not Cresselia that we were talking to. We started up the joke to deal with that.”

“A Cresselia that wasn't Cresselia— who would impersonate a Legend?”

Twig gave him a once-over, her suspiciousness giving way to exhaustion. “You know that Darkrai dude I mentioned a bit ago?”

The explanation that followed wasn't as horrifying as the manner in which it was told. Kip admitted his fears as he explained their subsequent clash with a Legend who masterminded Dialga's decay, but Twig dismissed hers. The blatant attempt to put on a brave face and minimize her own anxieties— anxieties which still clearly affected her, judging by the way she avoided eye contact and her tail’s flame fizzled and hissed while burning an anxious magenta— brought to mind a memory he'd almost forgotten.

(A bloody child shakily shoving helping hands aside, sobbing for him to ignore her wounds and tend to her partner. A refusal of aid in favor of assisting another.)

His hands curled into fists, and he looked away. Twig tensed and took a half-step closer to Kip, and the sight killed him.

***

Kip offered their motley trio a place in his and Twig's home as they searched for more permanent lodgings. They accepted, much to Twig's poorly hidden chagrin.

Everyone else had retired for the night— curled up in makeshift beds pulled haphazardly together out of blankets and pitiful amounts of straw insufficient for any real mattress. Grovyle snored loudly, sleeping deeply for perhaps the first time Dusknoir had ever been around to see, and Celebi had tucked herself tidily into her bed, breaths whistling lightly as she rested. Kip was doing the same a short distance away. Twig, meanwhile, sat at a table across the room, pretending to look over papers she must have read ten times each by now, glaring up at him every time she leafed through the stack anew.

The implication that she didn't trust him around her unconscious friends and had taken up watch to protect them wasn't lost on him.

She did this for multiple nights. She'd reached the point that she was nodding off in the daytime, exhausted by her nightly vigils, but she still kept them up. He had attempted to fake sleeping earlier in the night so she'd allow herself rest, but she remained awake even then— and so he swiftly gave up the ruse in favor of his typical pattern of sleep. Each evening, she'd take up her post at the table and start skimming papers with feigned interest, keeping an eye on his every move and tensing whenever he so much as twitched.

He deserved each terrified glower she gave him. His knowledge of his guilt didn't make it any easier to see one so young carrying the world on her shoulders.

She was grown now— likely nearing an evolution, if the reddish scales now dotting her skin meant anything— but she still had the eyes of a haunted child when the nights were long and her watch over her friends wore on her.

She finally slipped up one evening, her head settled on folded arms over the table’s surface, eyelids drifting closed until her breathing finally evened out and she fell asleep. He sighed with relief, but the reassurance that she'd finally get some rest was short-lived.

She flinched in her sleep, murmuring fearfully, fingers twitching against the tabletop she'd slumped over.

Uncertain of what to do, but called to help all the same, he rose and pulled a blanket from the meager sheets comprising her empty bed. She relaxed when he draped it over her, her hands no longer balling into fists and her tail’s flame glowing a warm, peaceful white instead of flickering between aggressive violets and panicked magentas.

She looked smaller as she slept— as if in her slumber she forgot to puff herself up and pretend she was self-assured and confident. She looked like a recruit too young to keep up with her older peers and too naive to understand the danger she threw herself readily into.

She looked like a child.

She looked like a child, but she'd never had the chance to truly be one. Between running for her life in the Dark Future, to taking on a schooling far too intensive for those her age, to waging battles with Legends and shouldering whatever trauma she'd garnered from all of it— she'd never been allowed such an opportunity.

(He was part of that. He was part of the reasons she'd never been able to grow up as a child should. He'd been part of the wretched selection of foes who robbed her of her youth.)

Dusknoir tugged the blanket higher around the girl's shoulders. She sighed a cozy, content sound, and he left for a late night walk.

He didn't mention the blanket come morning. She left it unspoken as well.

(She took a glance at her post the next evening and turned away, electing to sprawl out in her bed and snore almost loud enough to put Grovyle to shame.)

(It was a simple thing. Meaningless, really, and no great signifier of any faith that had been rebuilt. But it moved him near to tears regardless as she dropped off to sleep before any of the rest of them. She trusted them all to keep her safe and be safe in turn— and he was encircled in that trust.)

(It wasn't the unwavering faith of a child, but it was something, and it was something that meant the world.)

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nutklcker · 2 months

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HI (I LOVE THE PARAGRAPHS EACH OFYOU LEAVE IN MY TAGS SO FUCKIMG MUCH) do any of your ocs have ref sheets. or even just full-body drawings . totally not asking for any specific purpose ....

WE'RE SO GLAD YOU LOVE OUR RAMBLING you have such pretty art and reblog some of the best posts and you're so good at writing so we just have to explode in the tags sometimes hehe

Also we saw this ask like four? Five? Hours ago and went Oh Shit No We Don't and have spent the whole time drawing and we were like Oh we should throw our LC alters in there too since this is their blog and their mutuals should know who they're talking to! And then we got distracted and ONLY drew the alters and host's self insert and none of our OC's so :> we'll do that eventually though but we'll also do like another post with more info ANYWAYS here's the art we made of the self insert and the Lethal alters :3

Info for each of us under the cut (also Rend and Anno are heavily derived from a fever dream March had after we got surgery and had complications, as such they have a story and are pretty attached to it so we'll go into that too)

The "Story"/Fever Dream:

There were two crews who led a revolution against The Company about fifty years before the game takes place, and of them were eight people named Experimentation, Assurance, Vow, Offense, March, Rend, Dine, and Titan, and they weren't named after the planets, the planets were named after them. (Rend, March, Assurance, and Vow were on a team with Rend being the captain, and the other team was led by Titan and had Dine, Offense, and Experimentation.) Eventually, the revolution got pretty popular and widespread so The Company gave in and agreed to meet with the two teams to discuss their requests, and at the end of the discussion they promised the requests would take place within the next few weeks. The eight members of the revolution were satisfied and went back to work, but the next day they were given news that due to their conjoined efforts they would have to all split up and join different teams to ensure that they didn't again backstab the company once their requests were fulfilled. They, unfortunately, did not put up a fight against this and within the next quota cycle each of them were abandoned and killed on different, new moons none of them had ever seen before. The company never enforced the things they agreed upon but because the leaders of the revolution were killed before word of the promises got far, and because they mysteriously went missing and had new moons named after them, nobody said anything and nobody acted out against The Company.

Pace:

- Pace is Geno's self-insert OC and he uses He/Him pronouns and is transmasc <3

- He was an employee for The Company AFTER the time of the revolution and worked not as a scrap collector but as a biologist. His team was tasked with finding specific monsters and collecting some bio matter from them to then bring back to The Company. Pace had a rivalry with one of his teammates who was tired of Pace always succeeding, so, he pushed for Pace to receive a Bracken as his quarry and succeeded. However upon arriving Pace was easily able to find the Bracken of Vow (who was actually Vow from the revolution) and collect bio matter from it by befriending it, which enraged his competitor and led to both Pace and Vow being shot. Vow tried to protect Pace after realizing the shot that hit him was not meant for him, but both were too wounded to survive. Vow disintegrated atop of Pace, leaving him and his open wounds covered in Bracken spores, and his competitor left to eventually be killed by a coilhead. Their other two teammates made it out.

- The spores found the decomposing body of a human to be the perfect place to reform and create a new Bracken; that being Pace. Pace spent about twenty years hunting loot bugs and hiding from scrap collectors before a woman named Kite and her captain Calamity found him at the fire exit of Vow. The two found that he was friendly and took him upon their ship, but one of their teammates was appalled at having a "friendly" Bracken and, as they were leaving, pushed Calamity out of the ship in anger, landing her between a dog and a baboon hawk. Pace jumped to rescue her and while he was successfully able to lure the dog away enough for Calamity to safely jump back on the ship, he was grabbed by the Dog and torn to shreds. The ship's autopilot took off while he was fighting the dog and the crew (excluding the asshole) started to panic.

- The next day Vow was eclipsed and, much to Calamity and Kite's disdain, the crew decided to wait for the eclipse to pass before landing back down on Vow and looking for Pace. Meanwhile, Pace had managed to crawl his way back to the fire exit, tumbling down the ravine, and set himself up on a pallet just inside the door. There, sleeping through the whole day, he was able to slowly heal.

- The third and last day of the quota cycle, Calamity's crew got into another argument with Asshole over going to save Pace, and landed at Vow without realizing another team (March's team, as he had already been rescued by a crew by this time) had already landed there. Calamity and Kite rushed in to find Pace while Sail, the crew's navigator and Kite's twin brother, argued with the asshole. The captain of the other crew, who's ship was nearby, overheard an argument about saving a "friendly bracken" and connected the dots that another crew must have found someone like March, their friendly coil-head, and walked out to confront the two. Sail left to help Calamity and Kite find Pace, and the captain (name yet unknown) spoke with the asshole, found out he wanted to kill Pace and attempted to kill his own captain, and promptly hit him over the head with a shovel in order to protect not just his crew, but March as well. The asshole was left there as the captain rushed in to inform his crew of another friendly monster and tell the other crew bus was happy to help, and the asshole was left there to be picked up and carried away by a Giant.

- Pace was eventually found , missing most of his arm, leg, and leaves on his left side, and the two crews met up and became friends. Pace was placed in a large pot covered up to his shoulders in dirt and for the next few quota cycles his crew would place him outside to soak up the sun and look around. Because his arm and leg were fully submerged in the soil and water, they regrew, but his eye never did. He doesn't mind too much though, he can tell when things are looking at him and, in his opinion, that's all he really needs his eyes for. He helps scavenge for scrap and is able to carry two heavy items at a time, however, he can only carry one light item when doing so as it's uncomfortable to hold in his big hands

March:

- March was our first LC alter and has been around since about late October? He's not too conncected to his source and is actually the version of March from our fever dream BEFORE the revolution ended. So though the March in our dream was a coil head by the end of it, our March still thinks of himself as human. Being compared to a coil doesn't bother him though, they're his favorite enemy in the game :) also he's mute and considers himself cis and demiro-ace.

Rend:

- Rend is also one of our alters but is a lot more attached to both the game and the "story" so he has some funky false memories and is a little delulu about it, but he's happy and healthy and aware of reality and not hurting anyone or our system or himself so we don't mind hehe also, Rend is transmasc just like host and his pronouns are he/him but he's trying out they/it

- Rend is of course based on Captain Rend from the "story" but, unlike March, is from AFTER he died and he much prefers being seen as a nutcracker than a human. Our assumption over why is because Rend had actually been a fragment for most of our life who managed family interactions, and since that was all our brain found him fit for he never really gained a personality or sense of self and as such thinks he looks exactly like our host and would probably share the same name and everything. We think subconsciously our brain makes him like being a nutcracker more than a human in order to make it easier to distinguish him and host

- Rend, being much more intrigued by the fever dream likes daydreaming about it a lot, like he's roleplaying in his head in his own, and as such he likes talking about it and thinking about it a lot more than March does. So, here's some things he daydreams about a lot and thinks would be "canon" continuations of the "story"/fever dream:

- Before March's team found Pace and his team, they got to a pretty high quota and started visiting Rend and Dine. One of their first times visiting Rend, Melody, an employee on March's team, found a seemingly deactivated nutcracker deep in the facility. The team had split up so Melody knew she would have to be careful, but she wanted the shotgun so she crept close and clumsily grabbed it, setting it off. This startled here and she backed off, watching in silent horror as the Nutcracker slowly started to move and stand and, eventually, open up and look around. In panic, Melody ran despite being looked at and, for a moment, Rene stood there confuse before he realized he had finally found someone. Forgetting his voice, he chased after her for a bit but she would frequently stop and hold still so he had trouble. Eventually he shouted to her to wait and she paused, turning to look at the apparently able to speak nutcracker just as March had sped up beside her to block the path between her and Rend. Staring down at an employee with his shotgun and a coilhead that was looking at him and not said employee, Rend ran. In instinct, as she had gotten used to March by now, Melody turned and March gave chase. He was scared and angry that the nutcracker had presumably tried to shoot his friend and, upon trying to push the nutcracker to get it to stop running, he sent a surge through its body and caused it to bleed (like how we headcannon them to work, building up pressure in the body's blood). Melody followed a few rooms behind, having trouble keeping up with the two big monsters but, when Rend was hurt he screamed, and Melody knew that wasn't any of her teammates so she picked up the pace. Rend had been cornered but Melody caught sight of March which forced him to stop moving, and tried to rush to the nutcracker when she saw him bleeding, but, turning her back to March Rend panicked and stepped between the two, telling Melody that he wanted to talk to her but couldn't protect her with the state he was in, so she needed to look at the coil head. He was seemingly trying to protect her. For his comfort she did look at March, but tried to assure him to calm down, sit for a little so she could try and tend to whatever part of him was bleeding, and that she would be more than willing to talk. They spoke for a while, Rend having trouble believing that the coil was friendly given how it seemingly tried to explode him, but he let bygones be bygones. Melody and March both started to wonder if this was one of his old friends but they had decided beforehand not to bring it up to any possible teammates without getting a gauge for their mental state, and Rend was very frazzled so they decided to wait to ask his name or story until he calmed down. They gave him back his shotgun, he turned the safety on, and Melody convinced him to open up so she could tend to his bleeding eye, and eventually the three started to make their way back to main in order to meet up with the rest of the team and get Rend out to their ship

- On the way there they met up with the teammate March had been with before he came running after he heard the gunshot, but this teammate was actively running from a thumper. Rend tried to shoot it but missed due to his eye injury and urged the rest of them to run as he'd hold it back as long as possible. The three left and Rend dragged the Thumper around for a bit before it got loose and rocketed down the hallway after the three. Rend, knowing the layout like the back of his hand, took an alternate route to get to main in order to hopefully outpace the thumper. He made it in time to tackle the thumper and send it and him over the balcony railing where they landed near Melody, March, and their other teammate who were actively trying to scare off a Bracken. Rend urged them to head outside and leave for their safety and they did. It took them a while to get back enough money to go back for Rend, and in this time they met Pace and his team. Rend is still actively daydreaming about this all the time so I'm sure he'll infodump about it more another time.

Anno:

- Anno has been around for the least amount of time, we had a major allergic reaction while Rend was fronting and so he spent time curled in a ball daydreaming as he always loves to. For comfort he daydreamed about cuddling a friendly masked, but eventually got so fed up he told our partner, aloud "I really hate this body" and our little asshole of a brain (/lh) essentially went "oh really? New alter be upon ye" and turned that cute little Masked Rend was daydreaming about into a new fragment. Anno has since become more concrete, he's transmasc and uses it/its pronouns, and it's not very interested in Lethal Company but LOVES Rend a lot. It's just kinda gay and likes Minecraft, like those are its things so far. Rend has decided that if Anno was in the "story" it would've been from far before the revolution and was left behind by mistake. That's about it for Anno, it's just kinda a thingy that's very gay

Wow so that's the end of that, I'm incapable of making long stories short apparently tee hee. I've been talking for way too long and I doubt anyone got this far, but this was mostly for us since we're soupy right now and it made us feel grounded. If you got this far Anno gives you a cookie.

#host #🎭#👁️#long post #ily (/p) sm Koka your art is so good and you're so awesome and we love seeing you on our dash #you're always welcome to send us more asks especially about the other OC's/characters in the fever dream/story #we'll probably make a post about them sometime soon anyway #and especially art of them #I loooove Kite #and the captain of Rend's new team #I already know how all of them look #its just putting that on paper that's hard #this was actually so therapeutic for us and Rend is so happy he finally got all his daydreams out somewhere #we're actually making an animatic of his origin story to the song Curses by Crane Wives #wow I'm sleepy #it's six in the morning and I've been awake all night #time to eat and go to bed now that we're done drawing and infodumping #tee hee #Cw long post #art #this is rebloggable btw

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