Surf's up!

[indigo_league]

Who: Everybody!
Where: Fuchsia City Beach
When: July 15th
Summary: Get yo beach fun on


As far as perfect summer days are concerned, this one is as perfect as they get. The sun is warm, the breeze brings just the right amount of needed refreshment, and the ocean waves are totally gnarly. Because that is what you say when a wave is good.



Seeing as this party has been 'organised' by a group of beach bums, their surfing buddies, and a group of very relaxed Pikachu, it's best not to expect anything too structured out of the day. That would totally harsh the vibe. No, this is very much a 'show up whenever, do whatever, be chill' sort of meet-up.

There's a little stand where visitors can rent all manner of surfboards, wakeboards, and floats. Not for rent, but definitely for fun, is a giant, blow-up Cresselia float. Anyone wanting to join the party need only climb on board to be towed across the water by the surf-stand owner's Blastoise, which is having just as much fun as you are.

Always able to Detect an opportunity, several smaller stands of local merchants can be found selling everything you could ever want in the name of hydration and refreshment. Ice-cream, sodas, fresh water! You name it, and someone is bound to have it.

And while there really are no organised events, ever so often the surfers (human and Pikachu alike) will hold impromptu surfing contests. Feel free to join them. Or feel just as free to tap someone on the arm for some surfing lessons. You might even snag a small, electric instructor.

Speaking of snagging an electric buddy -- that, unfortunately, is the one rule this party does have: No battling and catching the Pikachu!. If you happen to hit it off with one and have a defining character moment after which it decides to stay with you? That's fine. But seriously. No battle. Not even mock-battles between friends. Vibes. Harshed. Let's not.

As evening begins to creep down on the shore and a beautiful sunset bathes the beach in golden light, a bonfire is lit, and food starts appearing everywhere.... though it is all, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you swing), strictly vegetarian. Anyone craving a good, meaty burger (or an old-fashioned marshmallow) better have brought their own, because here you will find only vegetarian substitutes.

So feel free to drop by, catch some waves, share some food, and who knows, maybe you might even make some new friends. As they say --



Surfs up~!

Comments

[fearinahandfulof]

It doesn't taste right to them. The only thing that tastes right to them is human guts.

[Cassandra remembers that feeling all too well from her own Awakening.. She supposes it's fortunate that she was only able to eat Roxanne, who'd been just as inhuman as Cassandra at the time.]

Bishop and Hicks?

[Cassandra already knows the dead can come here. After all, she's here.]

[sleepallthewayhome]

Can't they just eat stuff that doesn't taste good anyway?

[They sound picky.]

Hicks was one of the smart marines..soldiers who listened to Ripley. He got really hurt but he's alive. I think Bishop was with the soldiers because he's really smart about science stuff. He's an android...um that's a person whose made out of metal and plastic and computers but looks just like a person. And he's really great. He saved my life twice and since he's an android he didn't die when he got ripped in half.

[There are things Newt holds above all else. And those are, people Coming Back for her and people Not Dying.]

[fearinahandfulof]

They can, but I don't think they can make themselves care enough to unless there's nothing else around.

[Or unless they really, really hate the other Abyssal One that happens to be in front of them.

She listens gravely to the girl's explanation. She's not really sure she gets androids as a concept, but she can appreciate what he did for her even while grievously... wounded? If a person made of metal and plastic and computers is hurt like that, is it still called being hurt?]

I'm glad he survived that. And that he saved you. Will Hicks recover?

[sleepallthewayhome]

Why can't they? If they're smart enough to talk?

[She is totally more used to the type of monsters that reacted to things like animals. Horrific, smart, "the perfect predator", murder animals but still ...animals.]

Ripley said he'd be okay. We just have to get back to Earth. Then they can fix Bishop and Hicks and we'll be...okay.

[There is a part of her mind that as she gets older is starting to worry just a bit about the trip home. And then also what the Company will do when they get there. But hey she lives here now so-]

[fearinahandfulof]

[Cassandra's not sure how to explain this.]

I think... it's a compulsion of sorts? One that gets worse the hungrier they are. It's like they can't think of humans as anything but prey without a lot of effort.

[And a lot of them don't bother to make the effort. Cassandra suspects that at least some of that is because many of them used to be warriors, and warriors are so used to being despised by humans that humans becoming their actual prey is a form of turnabout.]

Are there other places you could go if you couldn't get back to Earth?

[sleepallthewayhome]

[It sounds confusing.]

What are they?

[Ah yeah...so, um space.]

I'm not really sure. I've never left the colony before. Maybe? I think it depends on why we couldn't get back. Because space is really dangerous to travel in if something goes wrong you could just end up being lost in space for years and years. Or you could die.

And when you travel they have to put you in a frozen sleep too. I was asleep when I woke up here the first time. You're supposed to go to sleep and then wake up where you wanted to be but...

[Everything got pretty damaged and as far as she knows the course is set to Earth so if they can't get there it's probably not a great thing.]

[fearinahandfulof]

[It is and it isn't.]

Compulsions? Or the monsters?

[...Right. Moving on?]

Frozen... sleep?

[That sounds... concerning.]

[sleepallthewayhome]

The monsters? Do they have a name?

[Welcome to the future of the past.]

Yeah it's how people travel in space sometimes. It's called hypersleep or cryosleep. They just freeze you and you sleep all the way to where you want to go.

[fearinahandfulof]

The weaker ones are called yoma. The stronger ones are called Awakened Beings, and the very strongest are called Abyssal Ones.

[And then there had been Priscilla, who had been beyond even that, but she hadn't had a special classification or anything that Cassandra's aware of; she'd just been Priscilla.]

Why do they freeze you?

[sleepallthewayhome]

How do you kill them?

[Important things to know after all.]

I think it's safer to travel like that? And if you're travelling really far then you don't have to be awake for the trip. I bet they save money on food and stuff too, since people don't have to be awake the entire time.

[fearinahandfulof]

Yoma are killed by beheading. A human trained in swordsmanship can do it, but yoma are also capable of disguising themselves as human, and humans can't detect them unless they reveal themselves, or unless one of my kind is there to detect them. And if one of my kind is there, it's generally easier to let us kill them.

Awakened Beings are much harder to kill, and often have to be cut to pieces because many of them are capable of regenerating themselves and beheading them isn't always enough. My kind are typically sent out in groups of four to fight them - only the very strongest of us are capable of taking them down alone.

[Cassandra had been one of those very strongest warriors, though; she'd always fought Awakened Beings alone, and won.]

Abyssal Ones... are typically avoided. You need a lot of my kind to do it, or to hope that they kill each other.

[sleepallthewayhome]

What are, your kind?

[fearinahandfulof]

We call - called - ourselves warriors of the Organization. Most humans called us Claymores, or silver-eyed witches. We... start out as human, but the Organization... changes us.

[sleepallthewayhome]

Do they change your eyes silver?

[fearinahandfulof]

[She nods.]

It's one of the effects. We lose most of our color, including our hair, and some of us have pointed ears.

[Cassandra's ears are, in fact, delicately pointed even in this form, and there's a definite silver sheen in her eyes.]

[sleepallthewayhome]

[Newt is 100% not subtly trying to see if her eyes are silver.]

Does it go somewhere? The colour I mean?

[fearinahandfulof]

[Cassandra's used to that kind of inspection by now, though she's not fond of it. Still, the girl isn't acting hostile to her (yet?), so she doesn't mind it quite as much.

The question throws her, though.]

Go?

[sleepallthewayhome]

[Silver eyes just sound really neat. So yeah, no hostility here.]

You said you lose most of your colour.

[Give her a moment to remember this is an odd question.]

It's just that there was that thing that came here last year and it was stealing colour from people and pokemon so they looked all grey and when it was defeated it all went back to them....

[So maybe your colour went somewhere too?]

[fearinahandfulof]

[Cassandra wouldn't mind them so much if humans in her world didn't react so badly to them.]

I'm... not sure it works that way for us. When a warrior is made, her color is mostly just gone until she dies. A warrior who only loses some will be looked down on, because that means the conversion didn't take properly and she'll be much weaker.

The only way for a warrior to get her color back is to... Awaken. And none of us wants that.

[sleepallthewayhome]

...what does Awaken mean?

[Because it sounds more important then waking up and that wouldn't even make sense anyway.]

[fearinahandfulof]

[And that's the one question Cassandra didn't want to answer. But she does.]

Awakening is when a warrior loses control over her power, either by using too much of it at once or by slowly losing the ability to control it over time. Either of those is enough to force a change, although the latter is a much slower process.

...The power we wield is normally called yoma energy. Because they create us by implanting yoma flesh in us.

[And Newt is undoubtedly smart enough to piece all of these details together and get "Awakened Being."]

[sleepallthewayhome]

[Yup and she's also aware enough, with her own terrible past that she might be getting into 'maybe she shouldn't ask all the questions she has about how all the things in that world work' territory. She has her own things that are off limits too.]

Are you okay with not having your powers here?

[fearinahandfulof]

[And if nothing else, Cassandra understands that sort of trauma. But most of the children Newt's age she'd known had been trainees, who needed to know these things, and so it wouldn't occur to her not to tell her things just because it would hurt Cassandra.

That it might further traumatize Newt, though, does give her pause.]

There are things about them I miss, because they were useful, but... it's better this way. Safer. Without the alterations the Organization made, I can't Awaken, and I won't be a threat to the people here.

[sleepallthewayhome]

That makes sense. I always thought it must be really confusing for the people who get changed when they're brought here.

....I think it's because they only want the pokemon to have powers.

[fearinahandfulof]

It was, but honestly a lot was confusing when I was brought here.

[Such as: Why was she alive again?]

That makes sense, although it doesn't seem fair to force the pokemon to do everything.

[She'd much rather be able to fight alongside her pokemon in case of a threat.]