Expanding Horizons (OTA Catchall)

[worthallthis]

Who: Bucky Barnes AKA the Winter Soldier, and OPEN
Where: Routes 30 and 31, then Violet City as of 6/12
When: June 9 - 16, next leg of the journey!
Summary: Traveling with friends and finally hitting the city! Because Buck needs more CR and he refuses to engage with the network...
Rating: PG-13 for the swearing again


I. On the Road; Routes 30 and 31, June 9 - 11

It’s a longer trip from Cherrygrove to Violet City, the next location on the map, but it’s not an unpleasant trip. There are eggs to carry-- and to collect, as a large bird pokemon drops some off for the Soldier and Entrapta a day out of Cherrygrove-- and new pokemon to marvel at. The device is actually really useful, and the Soldier is pretty sure he has both books memorized now, even if he keeps looking things up.

This is the new mission. It’s a better one than the last one. He might be starting to relax a little, but he’s still not sure how to smile.

The campfire is comfortable, though, as they sit around it and read, write, pet and groom pokemon, or talk. (Well. Mostly listen to Entrapta talk.) The Soldier discovers the radio, at which point he discovers that everyone can hear that weird music everywhere and it’s not just his brain being crazy, and at further point he discovers jazz. Which is the best thing ever, maybe even better than Grace (Sorry, doll.), and Entrapta and Link will have to make him change the station or turn it off when they get sick of it.


II. Catching, Take Two; Route 31, June 11

It takes the Soldier almost until they reach Violet City to try the pokeball thing again. This time, though, he crouches down next to the absolutely adorable little Espurr once Grace and the Starly (who is now a Starava, that was a fun experience) are sitting on her, and wave them off. And he offers the ball, instead of throwing it, silent but inviting.

He’s gonna let them choose, going forward. It only seems fair. Nobody should not be allowed to choose. (Not anymore.)


III. Townie Life; Violet City, June 12 - 16

It’s a nice little city. He keeps thinking the buildings should be a little taller. A slightly different style. Dirtier, maybe. But the feeling of more people around him feels right, and if he closes his eyes, listening and breathing in the smell, he almost feels at home.

He and Entrapta stay at the pokemon training center, because one, it’s the cheapest option besides camping out, and two, there’s shit to learn there. He can be found making notes in a new notebook before, during, and after lessons (And damn do we feel old, surrounded by all those teenagers.), pacing around the town itself in a kind of leisurely patrol, or sitting somewhere in the sun just taking in the sights.

Or chasing down pokemon babies. He’s got a handful of those.


IV. Babies; Violet City, June 12 - 16

Very young pokemon are difficult to keep track of, as it turns out. They’re like unruly children, who happen to be even smaller than regular children. And the Soldier has three of them to keep track of-- four, if Entrapta’s little Growlithe cub is in the mix. It’s like trying to keep track of the girls, only worse. (What girls?)

First, there’s the Skitty, Fuzzlebutt, who refuses to grow up yet, though not from lack of trying to get new experiences. Most of those experiences consist of biting, chewing on people’s shoes, and pouncing whatever pokemon he can find. He might be small for his type and age, but he makes up for it in energy and aggression.

Second, there’s the Rockruff, hatched on the road on the way to Violet City, who is much friendlier than Fuzzle but also much louder, and just as energetic. She keeps bounding up to people, barking, “Rockruff! Rockruff! Rock! Ruff! Ruff!” while the Soldier chases after her anxiously, apologizing.

Third, there’s little Stevie, a barely-hatched baby Absol who keeps tripping on his own over-sized paws and landing face-first into something pointy, or chasing after pidgies until they swarm him, or trying to keep up with the other two when he’s smaller and weaker and clearly a little runty. He stumbles over a passer-by’s feet or catches their pants leg or skirt to stop them from stepping in a puddle or to try and herd them this way or that or just in an excess of energy. The Soldier comes to collect him with a sigh and another apology.

Comments

[carbonatedscientist]

"Yes," Sento says with a bit of a sigh. "It's true what they say about rabbits being excellent at multiplication. Certain parties may need a bit more supervision in the future." The larger Bunnelby does its best to look innocent, and the larger Scorbunny is still tussling with Fuzzle, which is for the best.

He can't bring himself to go all-out on such a small Pokemon. "Bun! Bun bun bun!" And he's sitting down and trying to lightly kick off the Skitty with his other foot.

[worthallthis]

"Think that's just pokemon in general," the Soldier says, wondering if maybe this would be something that could merit a smile. All he manages, really, is kind of exasperated. "Not just rabbits. Grace and Nancy just made eggs three days after they met."

The Absol at his side twitches her tail to one side and says primly, "Absol."

"To help us," the Soldier allows. "For getting supply. And experience. And then I couldn't give up one of the babies, anyway."

"Absol," Grace agrees.

Stevie is still sprawled across his shoulder, watching the scuffle alertly, as if trying to learn from it. "Skittyyyyyyyy," Fuzzle says, muffled through Tank's foot-fur, and lets go only to bat at the new kicking foot.

[carbonatedscientist]

"Ah, I still haven't found anyone who would be well-suited to adopt any of these boys," Sento says. "We're still looking for interested parties." Speak now or forever hold your peace, Soldier. "It's quite the handful with all of them." He is hoping he doesn't become that attached to all of them; that's a lot of rabbits to watch out for.

"Bun." Tank gives an exasperated sigh and reaches out to bop the Skitty on the nose with one of his forepaws.

[worthallthis]

While the pointed look Grace gives him might be translated as "you're well-suited," the Soldier already has his hands full with the collection of babies he has. Especially since Entrapta really isn't... great with babies. She tends to forget they're there, or else try to run experiments with them. Not helpful.

So: full agreement, no offers to adopt. "Yes, it is. Especially when they're energetic. And all get going at once. Grace helps. When she feels like it."

Fuzzle answers the bop with a swat, and if Tank's not careful, he's going to wind up in a full-on slap fight with a flower-kitten.

[carbonatedscientist]

That gets a smile from Sento. "What makes things interesting is that it seems that the only move that all of them know is Quick Attack." There's a sigh. "Things get pretty lively if they all start running around at the same time."

Tank is absolutely going to wind up in a full-on slap fight with a flower-kitten. But Sento's comment about Quick Attack has given one of the smaller Bunnelby an idea, and it hops down there. "Bun! Bun!" And it's absolutely zipping around and trying to distract the Skitty with Quick Attack.

[worthallthis]

"Apparently that happens when you lower-level pokemon breed who don't have a lot of low-level abilities in common," the Soldier says. Look, he practically has the breeder handbook memorized. He's got this. "They only get whatever abilities the parents share. So Stevie here isn't likely to have much talent for battle." He gives the Absol on his shoulder a little scratch behind the horn, distracting him from the battle. That's fine by him. He has no desire to see his furry friends fight for real.

Fuzzle looks around, vaguely bewildered, but only for a moment. He is one of the few pokemon the Soldier's collected who likes fighting-- and is actually good at it. He yowls, with Disarming Voice, aiming less to hurt and more to disrupt Tank's zooming so he can Tackle (or, well, pounce). If Tank is going to escalate, so is Fuzzlebutt!

[carbonatedscientist]

Sento sighs. "Yes, well, I do believe their parents didn't keep that in mind when they decided to. Well, you know."

"Bun! Bun! Bunbunbun!" Oh, let's escalate, Tank's tired of playing Mr. Nice Scorbunny. "Bun!" He spits an Ember at the Skitty. (Just a little one, it's fine, fine...)

"Tank!" Sento's calling out an admonishment there. "Play nice!"

[worthallthis]

"Think Grace knew, but in this instance didn't really care. It was experience. And a means--"

Fuzzle is not intimidated. The Ember doesn't actually burn-- yay 1-in-10 odds-- but it does sting. He yowls again, this time without a move involved, and just latches onto one of Tank's ears with all four paws and his teeth, too, for good measure.

The Soldier winces and breaks off, stepping over there to try and detach the Skitty. "Hey. Enough. No actually hurting each other, here."

[carbonatedscientist]

Sento's reaching down there to grab at Tank, too. "Oh, no you don't. We're not having a Trainer battle like with that insistent kid with the Rattata, forget it."

Tank, at this point, just has his arms crossed and is clearly sulking. But he's not, at least, trying to spit more fire at anything.

[worthallthis]

The Soldier gives Tank an apologetic look, and tucks Fuzzle under his arm, to the Skitty's noisy disappointment. Stevie swats at him from the opposite shoulder. "Maybe another day, you two. When we're not in the street. And it's time to actually practice."

Fuzzle looks hopeful. "Skitty?"

"If it's really what you want, I'll make sure you get time to practice in the future," the Soldier says wearily, guessing at his meaning.

[carbonatedscientist]

"We could even set up a proper spar sometime," Sento says as he also goes to scoop up that stray Bunnelby. He definitely has an armful of rabbits now. "But it's not nice to pick fights for no reason."

Yep, Tank is definitely sulking now.

[worthallthis]

"Skittyyyyyy." Which translates for Tank to "not for no reason, for fun!" though the Soldier remains sadly unable to understand the nuances.

"Are you going to be in Violet City for a while?" the Soldier asks Sento. Maybe he and this guy and Entrapta could get together. He's pretty sure Entrapta would enjoy watching and taking notes.

[carbonatedscientist]

Sento's similarly oblivious to the nuance, but Tank understands. "Scorbunny!" Someday, little Skitty, they will have a decent spar.

"For a bit, yes." Sento frowns slightly. "I do want to take in the ruins while I'm in the area, and when I get to Goldenrod, I should be able to take a train to the town where Silph makes its headquarters, and from there, I should be able to talk my way into a job." That much optimism probably isn't warranted, but he's confident anyway. "But I suppose there's no rush. Goodness knows I haven't had a break in..." He pauses. "Hm. A vacation may do me some good."

[worthallthis]

Fuzzle waves over at Tank with a sad face. Someday!

The mention of Silph makes the Soldier frown. "They're the ones who reprogram pokemon. The Type: Nulls. You want to work for them?" He doesn't really understand the concept of "vacation", even if, technically, most of his time here in Johto has been a vacation compared to what he's used to. He's still "on duty" when it comes to protecting Entrapta and the pokemon, anyway, even if it's a pretty easy duty most of the time.

[carbonatedscientist]

"Ah, reprogramming. That sounds far worse than simply creating them and being secretive about all their technology." Sento meets the Soldier's frown with a humorless one of his own. "Work 'for' them isn't quite the right idea. 'Dismantle all of their experiments on sentient creatures from the inside' is more along the lines of what I was thinking."

[worthallthis]

Considering nobody knows how pokemon even breed, the Soldier is pretty sure they're altering, not creating, which fits into his paradigm as "programming". He considers Sento a moment grimly, then nods once. "If you need someone for backup. For the dismantling part. Let me know." The metal arm buzzes, as if backing up the offer of backup.

[carbonatedscientist]

Look, someone told Sento they'd created one over there as they were first telling him about Silph; he's going on what he knows for that. But Bucky's offer gets a grin out of him. "Excellent; I'll have to remember to restrain myself a few moments to allow you time to arrive if I find anything particularly heinous." He's absolutely expecting that, at this rate.

[worthallthis]

"Eventually I'll be headed that way, too. It just might take a while." Since he really should finish the classes up, here... and make some money... and there's Entrapta's decisions to take into account. And weird weekends, not that he knows that yet.

He frowns just a little, distracted by the thought. "I really need to find some work I can do."

[carbonatedscientist]

"Well, it seems like we've got quite a bit of time on our hands," Sento allows. "There's still much to learn of this world, and I suspect that's the sort of knowledge that would help me land a job over there in the first place." He's at least thinking he'll need to have some bigger, more impressive-looking Pokemon--meaning he'll have to train his current ones up a bit.

And oh, there's the idea of work. "Well, what are you good at? Back home, my financial prospects weren't exactly the greatest anyway--" hard to do that when you technically aren't supposed to exist "--but Banjou and I made it work. I suppose I could look for a bit of tinkering work as I move around here, too."

[worthallthis]

The most accurate answer-- killing people-- he finds himself kind of reluctant to share. Everything about this world seems... gentle. Sharing with all and sundry that he spent all the time he can remember (which is not much at all) basically on a handler-directed murder-spree feels wrong and uncomfortable, even if he probably deserves the kind of ire that would net him.

So he gives the second-most accurate answer: "I don't know. I don't remember more than a day before I woke up in this world."

[carbonatedscientist]

"Ah!" Sento's reaction probably isn't what the Soldier might have been expecting. "A fellow amnesiac! It's been...oh, about two years since they found me of no memory of who I was." Sento shakes his head a bit. "Don't push yourself. Some things may come back, some may not, and others still may surprise you."

[worthallthis]

His head comes up, looking Sento straight on with a little frown. Still no eye contact, but it's closer. "Don't know how to push it. Things come when I don't expect them to. Not very many things. How did you forget?" The first thing that comes to mind is that of course if the technology existed in one place, it had to exist in another. But the idea that other people had to go through the Chair makes him feel sick.

[carbonatedscientist]

The Soldier hasn't yet achieved a high enough level in friendship to get the full story, but Sento says, "Back on my world, there was an organization called Faust. They were doing some...rather untoward experiments with Nebula Gas, a substance derived from a Martian artifact. I tried to stop them. That first attempt did...not go according to plan." There's a pause. "Among other things, prolonged exposure to Nebula Gas can cause severe memory loss."

[worthallthis]

Better than it could be. And a kind of nice sentiment. Stopping untoward experiments. The metal arm stutters through a calibration loop under his sleeve. "So they came back. Your memories."

It's not clear whether the Soldier is pleased or not by the suggestion. He's pretty sure a lot of his memories are going to be terrible.

[carbonatedscientist]

"Yes." Sento nods. "It...took quite a bit of doing--you have no idea how many times I almost died--and I had a lot of help. And I still have some holes." And more than a few revelations that had been just a little traumatic. A lot traumatic. The sort of thing that would lead to conversations with another personality inside one's head for extended sessions for a while. "I'm who I am now, not who I was." There's a laugh because he's absolutely going to try to force a little bit of breezy, cocky cheer. "I'm a man who shouldn't exist, but I'm also the hero my friends built. It's enough."