victory_road | 118th moon [video]

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118th moon [video]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

[Cecil sits in front of his desk at the Gym, a practiced appeasing smile on his lips. He knows his message will not please everybody.]

A full third of May has already gone by, bringing along some much appreciated warm weather. But that is not all the month has to offer. Those of you who arrived after November or asked few questions back then may not know it, but it's almost time for our biannual-

[Trev trevenant nant-nant, says a voice offscreen. Startled, Cecil turns to face it.]

No, Child, that's twice in a year. Rosie and I can count up to sixteen.

[Nant trev trevenant, insists the voice. Cecil taps his fingers against his desk and frowns thoughtfully.]

You're thinking of 'biennial', I believe. The word does mean once every two years, but 'biannual' is-

[The trevtrevenaaaaaant nant trev that follows sounds particularly annoyed, and so does Cecil when he answers.]

So be it, but if the dictionary confirms my thoughts I WILL hold you to that. In fact-

[At that point, whichever Pokémon is holding the Gear sighs and turns it off. Sorry to whoever may have needed the actual PSA!]

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Right. And I think most would appreciate a head's up.

[Though that does make Armin think.]

Actually, if you don't mind me asking, how long have you been here?

Especially if it involves the moon again. Too few people are ready for that.

[And such a shame that is, moons are so lovely.]

I'll reach my eighth year at the end of August. People had been showing up in New Bark Town since the end of the previous May, but our first memory-less took place the following November.

[Armin wouldn't mind going to the moon. Unless it is another prom. He's put a kibosh on any further proms. They are bad luck.]

Then you are practically one of the first people who ever arrived here.

[And Armin is back to thinking about the conversation he had with Dipper.]

This might be a personal question, but during those eight years, did you maybe keep any sort of notes on the things that happened here?

Unless someone managed to escape my notice for nearly eight years, I'm the third earliest arrival that remains.

[He's kept track of that, sometimes to his sorrow.]

I kept a few notes at first, though I admit I've been lax in writing everything down for years. But most of my notes were comparative in nature, due to the high number of worlds similar to mine out there.

[That notebook is turning a bit yellow, in fact. He should replace it.]

That said, I can try to list the major events this world has gone through since then. I also know that a large-scale incident occured a few weeks before I arrived, but I don't recall the details.

Please, if you wouldn't mind. I think it might be good to have a record of everything that has happened here before, that anyone can access. That way, even if the people who have been here longest get returned to their worlds, we'd still have access to all your knowledge.

That is very important indeed. I seem to recall that someone once wished to create a public, permanently-engraved of everyone who has left this world, but I believe the project was abandoned when they disappeared in turn. Such information would be invaluable now...

Exactly. Dipper said it might be possible to create some sort of document that anyone would be able to add to using the gear. To be honest, I don't really understand that part, but it shouldn't be too difficult to at the very least write down as much information we can and store it in a safe location. Perhaps even multiple ones for the sake of added safety.

For my part, I keep thinking about what happened in April as well as what happened last year in August. We never did figure out what made the legendary beasts act like that. And we certainly haven't even seen anything like those strange jellyfish creatures. There are a lot of questions left unanswered, and I cannot help but wonder if there perhaps aren't a few answers further back in the past. There might be things we didn't consider important or noteworthy back then that might relate to what is happening now.

But, of course, the only way to investigate that is to first have an as detailed as possible reference of past events here.

It's certainly possible. Such easily accessed guides were written for new arrivals long ago, though their information would be sorely outdated if they were read now. It's much more practical than literally setting that information in stone, at any rate.

Multiple previous incidents have shared characteristics with these, but I cannot recall anything that was a perfect match. Still, perhaps a fresh look at those links could tell us more about what has taken place and what is to come... I'll have to ask my team for details that I may have forgotten.

It might be worth updating those. Not that I mind answering questions newcomers have, but I know I would certainly have appreciated more information than what we got when I first arrived.

If you could do that, it'd be much appreciated. It might be meaningless and there might not be any links between what happened recently or last year and past events, but I don't think it'd be a waste of time to at least check it out. Sometimes things can't be recognised for what they are without a fresh perspective or more information.

That's not surprising. This world has changed so much in so few years... Sometimes, I can barely recognize the land I found myself in back then. But they were mostly good changes, thankfully.

Hindsight and fresh eyes would be helpful, yes. Though I'll have to curate the list first, as I doubt events such as the Mistletoe Incident are related to this world's greater powers.

Really? What sort of things have changed?

And.... [He pauses, wondering if he should ask.] What was the Mistletoe incident?

Plenty. Half as many species roamed the land, with trainers being allowed less than twenty in total. We could not travel to Kanto, not that it mattered since so few of us had gone beyond Goldenrod. And we were... more. Hundreds more, with over a dozen newcomers arriving each week.

[But all the newcomers who had shared his own week were long gone, now.]

There was a... mishap with the mistletoe meant to decorate the cities for Christmas. Somehow, it irresistibly attracted Pokémon against all reason. I had to tape Rosie to the counter as I worked, otherwise she tried to climb up to the ceiling.

H-hundreds? Really? Were there that many of us here at some point?

[Though it also makes him frown a bit. Not an upset frown, an 'I'm thinking hard about this stuff' frown. Armin has never taken the time to count exactly how many of them there are here, but he feels it is pretty safe to say it is not hundreds currently. And while new people still arrive, people also still leave again. What had changed?]

Do you remember when that started changing? I mean, was it a gradual change or did a lot of people suddenly disappear overnight?

There were. So many of us, yet we all kept to the same few cities... It made our days very lively. People from different worlds would gather to travel together, whole families were reunited over weeks...

[But all those people are mostly gone, now. Gone and mourned and forgotten.]

The beginning of the month has always had a higher number of disappearances, but beyond that... We've had a time or two when it seemed there fewer people around, but there's also been a slow decline over the years.

There doesn't really seem to be enough to form a pattern. I wonder what changed though. What kind of reason could there be behind fewer people arriving here over time?

[He makes soft thinking sounds.]

Uhm. You said people have been arriving in this world for eight years now, right? And it had never happened before that?

Perhaps the force that brings us here has lost some of its power. Perhaps fewer of us are needed.

[Even as he speaks, he frowns. No, that can't be it. The occasional threats are far worse than they were.]

From what I understand, a large group of people arrived at the end of May eight years ago, with no predecessors present in this land and no explanation on the locals' side. That said, there may have been others in a different region, or beyond living memory.

We don't really know why or how we are brought here. Maybe certain circumstances are needed and those circumstances are slowly changing?

[If only Mr Pines were here. Nobody knows as much about interdimensional travel as he does.]

... Maybe in time the circumstances will be so different that nobody can arrive anymore.

...That is a possibility we cannot ignore, though I hope those circumstances will also allow the safe return home of everyone who wishes it.

That would be ideal, but I'm not sure if our wishes are going to be taken into account like that...

[It is not like they are exactly taken into account right now.]

Or if there is even anyone who can take them into account.

...If there, I'm sorry to say that they've not yet bothered to do so. Even in cases that involved people who had died in their home world.

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118th moon [video]

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