Chapter Text
Worlds are regularly composed out of three things.
Matter, magic, data.
Structured, shaped in one way or another.
One world may place the most importance into matter, making it the source of the other two, or the anchor, or simply the 'boss'. In some, the influence of two would be so small as to appear non-existent. Other worlds may be balanced.
It could all change wildly, even within a single corner of a given multiverse. Meta-laws were a field of study that required a great deal of mental flexibility simply to survive the observations themselves.
The world currently occupied? Data was at the top, with magic not too far behind.
Twisting the world with the power of the mind, forming careful, specific designs into the waves of psychic energy allowed the restructuring of the patterns obtained through deconstruction of various fruits to turn them into...
A box of cigarettes.
One could hear about how great a Metagross's processing powers were all day long, but most do not quite absorb the knowledge by themselves until they see one solving tricky calculations; be them predictions of spatial distortions... or running an alchemy program off - and on - the building blocks of reality with Unown support.
A glossy cerulean hand caught the small box once gravity asserted itself on it, tapping it nervously. On one hand, it was a habit that he would have never seen himself pick up before... before, and only did due to some really outlandish convergence of factors; on the other hand, it's not like he could actually be impacted negatively by it anymore, and it was partially a self-reward for having completed the restoration of the lighthouse, the reconstruction of the building he was currently in, the numbers of the Musharna dream-mist production going much better than expected, and having project Yggdrasil progress so nicely.
The cigarettes could wait, so they disappeared into his wallet; entering a fold of the void between/around all connected to it that was itself connected to him, and so none of it would actually occupy space.
Having what was effectively an inventory was absurdly broken, but at the level of "play" that he expected to experience he would need every last bit of advantage he could squeeze out of the structure of existence, so it would only feel broken in situations where, quite frankly, there were other, even more broken powers at play.
He was truly up a creek, although on the bright side there were far too many options rather than a lack of them; psychic powers, among other things, were helpful like that. Poking at the pink crystal protruding from his chest, the sensations it produced were still a bit ticklish whenever he used a same-type move - the spike itself varied from one individual to another, and his was pretty solid and somewhat transparent... he wondered if that meant anything.
The shiny Gardevoir adjusted his glasses, ruffled the cravat around his neck (it was his only article of clothing, but it made him feel more refined) and contemplated the empty room, trying to visualize it as his office. A desk here, some wall decorations over there, definitely a rug...
It still felt weird.
Specially with the temptation of starting a team named "Team Rocket" to mock (and just a little bit of spite) the Original Timeline one, but it was just a touch too silly for his taste.
That, and it was hard to think up a derivate motto that didn't sound ridiculous to his ears.
He walked to the window nearest to him; a round, wooden frame on the front side of the small tower on the building. The view of the town from the small hill made him... happy.
Oh, he had to build a mansion for himself on the other hill, the one not quite visible from the soon-to-be headquarters. With a big attic for a Ghost Pokémon like Chandy to haunt, of course, and many, many rooms.
It would be a bit crowded, possibly, but then again he could not have just himself in a house and call it full.
He'd go insane.
More than he already was, in any case.
He closed his eyes and simply... was at peace. Holding his arms behind him, straightening his back - and using a small thought to have the looser parts of himself resemble an open coat more than a dress.
Gardevoir were grouped with amorphous Pokémon for a reason, he'd found.
A small yellow blur tore through the road in an impressive display of Agility, heading directly for the building.
He sighed, smiling at the idea of the little guy not yet getting used to... well, the situation - not that it was his fault or anything; it was certainly no less strange from the side he was on.
Blink and he was on the other side of the window, floating gently down to the ground.
He opened his eyes as the blur resolved into a Mienfoo, wearing a blue bandanna around his neck.
"Boss!" The small mustelid's emotions were all over the place, but the overall positive lean made the psychic smile regardless. "It's big!"
"Now now, Li, calm down." He replied, placing a large hand gently on Li's head. "I already told you how to get in touch with me without having to sprint all across town. Search-"
"Search for the green-and-turquoise bandanna. Or scarf, or whatever." Li intoned, half-deadpan and half-embarrassed. He perked back up quickly, however. "Boss, It happened! Someone is asking about humans! I told them to 'wait at the café by the fountain' like you said."
"You did good, Li; get Chandy and tell her to meet us there, then... go home, already!" He grinned as he tousled Li's fur, short as it was.
"Ah!" He laughed and tried swatting the large hand away, but it was swiftly replaced by the other.
"Go home for dinner, rest, and we'll practice more tomorrow; I'm not teaching you another move until you get those down, you know?" He turned little Li around and patted him on the shoulder, walking towards town. "Your mom is going to be mad at me if you break something while practicing."
"Mom keeps reminding me..." He hid his face behind his paws, accepting the "boss's" lead.
"Kind of her fault for teaching you Knock-Off."
"She keeps reminding me of that, too."
He became a little more lively, though, likely because of all the boosts from the Agility, and shot off in search of the ghost while throwing a hasty good-bye back.
One Teleport latter, he was half-walking-half-gliding next to the fountain - a simple affair that had nonetheless required a lot of work to restore, as had most of the place, sadly.
Freaking Hydreigon throwing a tantrum, and Malamar just encouraging-and/or-needling him...
A female Lucario seemingly materialized at the edge of the fountain in a more advanced version of the movement technique the Mienfoo was learning, sitting there with a Doublade resting on the small of her back. She wore golden teashade sunglasses, a blue wristband and an armband with green and teal stripes; the Doublade's combined scabbard had a similarly-stripped bandanna tied to it, held to the jackal pokémon's waist by a blue belt.
He felt safer already, not that he had a reason to fear for his personal safety; there had just been too many damaged buildings when he first arrived, and weird powers or no, Pokémon with different capabilities for coverage were always appreciated. A variety of fliers circled the town, and the lucario made a show of observing them and the signals they gave. Just having more support in case things went south (or came from the south, he thought with distaste) was reassuring, and he had let the town know they had someone looking out for them. He was very proud of that combo, Lucario with Doublade...
Where the world more like the games, having one of the swords have a blue-colored arm/sash thing would be impossible, but the place he had arrived at was a hair more like the world he knew that that, in that nature had various colors and patterns that followed rules he was more familiar with.
'Of course, with the exception of shininess.' He amended the thought while looking at the shine of his arm. He filed that away for the other high-brain-power Pokémon to ponder, to find out if solely-physical biochemistry influenced whenever or not a Pokémon was a Shiny; see if DNA had any sort of say in determining the sparkling and/or gloss. Or its equivalent for those that didn't have some of that, anyway.
Those thoughts sent away, literally, he focused on the Sunnyside Café. The green awning he was proud to say was restored without using the help of the alchemy program, just the powers available to all Gardevoir with some Musharna smoke to grease the wheels... and Lala the Leavanny owner's reward-cooking was just sooooo gooood, it was hard not to add extras! The glass storefront was, well, a thing it now had, and then it had delicate etchings of grass and flowers along the bottom, to go with the mural of a sunny meadow at the back; the entire place had been refurbished to be more modern, given new furniture but preserving the welcoming feel as much as possible - the biggest challenge was the kitchen, with the need for stoves and ovens that could be powered via Cyndaquil if the need arose.
Quilava, grovyle, snivy, and a pikachu; those were the Pokémon sitting along one side of one of the the exterior tables, sticking close together. A casual examination revealed their emotions to be a thick mess of worry and general anxiety, yet the mouse burned brightly with determination and loyalty, a strong feeling of leadership coming from the smallest of the group. It was... beautiful, that's what it was. Just as that other signature that had entered his range.
Chandy, a Chandelure with a sapphire flame; it was her way of wearing the team's color, by tinting her whole body - flames included - blue instead of purple. Living in a world not limited by the storage capacity of a few bits of plastic, silicone, and metal was a huge relief.
And now that he thought about relief... he would have been in quite a bit of trouble if Chandy hadn't found him; he had needed something to focus on other than himself.
With a smile and a nod, the pair approached the table, briefly locking eyes with the pikachu in a silent acknowledgement of each other. A nod, which was reciprocated; the signal all was good. The others noticed their arrival, and their silent exchange; emotions settled. About as good as it was likely to get that early.
"Sorry to keep you waiting." The arrivals sat across the group, or floated, in the case of the ghost. He had the hunch they were not quite ready for introductions, neither mentally nor emotionally. "I was told you had questions."
"Yeah... It's alright, really." The pikachu took the lead, as he had expected, throwing a quick glance at the lucario by the fountain, who just waved at him and kept looking at the sky. They, as a group, seemed to be glad to skip the introductions for the time being. "That Mienfoo kid said you know a lot about... well, about humans, and could find out anything you don't know quickly."
"He may be a dork, but he's resourceful." Chandy interrupted, making him almost chuckle in reflex, hiding his mouth behind a hand.
"All we've found on humans is... a bunch of legends, some weird stories, nothing quite definite, or even close to what we're looking for." The grovyle chewed lightly on his twig, halfway between anxiety and simple impatience.
Chandy gave the shiny a look of curiosity and maybe the beginnings of excitement; he didn't need the empathy of a gardevoir to tell - he was starting to feel that way himself.
He gave the group a more focused look, inspecting the emotions they let out for something more clear than what he already had. He decided to buy himself some more time, and something to eat - they looked like they could use it, too.
"As I understand, you arrived recently, right? Can I treat you to anything while we talk?" He asked, getting a general wave of unease for a few moments. The pikachu just turned at his friends, letting them speak for themselves.
"Sure." Quilava was the first to speak, dissolving much of the uncertain mood quickly, and prompting the others to agree as well. Thinking about what to order made their tension fade further, and he gladly took note of their orders.
He turned to the café, waving at the owner and signing at her, ordering without having to go in or have someone come out. He was glad lunch was over, and dinner not quite close.
"Don't tell me." He started, sounding slightly excited. Bringing a hand to his forehead in a flourish, he looked at the group.
First, the pikachu.
"You... miss being higher from the ground, and the size disparity with other Pokémon is awkward to you. You are worried about others you've left behind and want to go back to quickly."
He nodded grimly, clenching his little paws.
Quilava.
"You don't like going anywhere alone if you can help it, which is understandable, as is the feeling of anxiety over being somewhere unknown."
She nodded as well, slightly ashamed but grateful when Chandy gave her a smile and a quiet "it's going to get better".
Snivy.
"You're holding together excellently, you're... worried about your friends, not so much about yourself - this is an inconvenience to you, but it puts your loved ones in danger, and that just won't do."
Seeing a snake blush and try to play it off was funny, and the others felt much better at finding out what her slightly-haughty friend thought of the situation.
Grovyle.
"Much of the same." He interrupted, taking his twig off his mouth to speak. "Really, I can look out for myself, but we've got... others."
"I must say, you all seem to have adapted remarkably well to having fur or scales." The psychic added. "It doesn't seem you've been here that long."
The four newcomers gave a start, looking at each other in confusion.
"I don't think they were ever human." Chandy said, deflating slightly. "Or anyone in their group."
"Oh." He mouthed out at seeing the four Pokémon shake their heads.
The pikachu of the group looked at how both the gardevoir and lucario sagged. It wasn't quite straight-up in disappointment, more like, a hope that didn't pay off.
Chandy floated closer to him, placing an arm on his shoulder. With a slight, if uneven, smile at the comforting gesture, he straightened back up. The guarding lucario rested her head on her paw as she sat on the fountain's edge, looking back up listlessly.
"Well, I can still answer any questions you have. It's not common to see human enthusiasts." He started to sound slightly more animate. "I just- nevermind, meeting any here was a bit of a long shot anyway."
The pikachu decided to take a gamble, after a brief look at his fellows. He leaned forward to whisper, after looking that... the leavanny from before was getting the coffee and drinks ready, behind the glass, and the closest other pokémon were the lucario and doublade.
"We came from a world where there are humans, we're just not ones ourselves. We want to get back with our tra-our human and pokémon friends."
It was the turn for the others to get startled, with the ghost looking at the four of them quickly.
"Wait, are you...?" She spoke, high on anticipation, almost reverently.
Her friend didn't look that happy, though, slumping to cover his face as he groaned. The lucario seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, even though the mouse was sure she shouldn't have been able to listen.
"My luck cannot be this bad." The gardevoir lamented, rubbing his face with one hand as the other took his glasses, with the lucario howling a 'yeah my luck sucks so bad' in between her guffawing.
"Is the name of this trainer either 'Ash' or 'Ashley' Ketchum, from a town called Pallet, with a Professor named either 'Samuel' or 'Samantha' Oak?" Chandy asked with mounting excitement, shocking the visitors.
"Well, yeah!" The quilava answered. "How did you know?"
"Allow me to introduce ourselves." The gardevoir recomposed himself, extending a hand to his friend. "This is Chandy, the friendly ghost who found me a small while ago."
She cuffed him on the head for his joke, giggling nonetheless.
"And I, I used to be human, and had a human name - I still have it, and it's a nice one, but it doesn't feel like it's enough any more." He patted his chest, hand above his spike. "My name is Legion, for I am many."
General confusion. The lucario was stifling her giggles with her paws, walking towards their table.
"Isn't it supposed-"
"Yes, I'm aware, it is just that I found myself in a curious inversion of that situation, so I decided to take it anyway." The lucario spoke when she was close enough.
Pikachu, The Pikachu, that is, looked at the gardevoir, then the lucario.
"He's a sharp one, good!" The lucario said with a somewhat-sinister smile and Chandy immediately cuffed the gardevoir.
"You said that out loud, and in a creepy way." She reproached him.
"Sorry." He apologized, gesturing to the lucario. "I'm still having trouble telling everything apart from myself."
"I am also Legion, as are these two at my waist, but I'm one of the ones that represent a facet of the whole personality. Bloodlust, in my case." The lucario said, then looked at the side, prompting the others to do the same.
With coffee and berry juice passed along by the waitress, they resumed the conversation.
The visitors noted with some amusement that the former human (or so he said) was using all three pairs of hands they had available to load the coffee with cream and sugar.
"So, instead of many spirits possessing one body, you are many bodies with a single spirit?" Snivy said trying to figure out what was going on. "Something that I'm guessing must have happened when you turned into a, well, turned into Pokémon. I'm guessing you knew something about our trainer from before that? Did you come from our world, too?"
"Right for the first, not for the second." The gardevoir said as he snatched the cup away from his fighting-type body using Thief. "Before you ask how I wound up here, I had a run-in with some nasty people; they were plotting to sneak in some magic into a world which didn't have any - well, we have things that are magical, like love and loyalty and friendship, but not actual, hocus-pocus now-you're-on-fire magic spells. Spread people out through the Void, the harsher the transition the better, and wait for the survivors to bring back some powers that they would then try to control. World-hopping is not that simple that you can just snatch it away, thankfully."
"In my birthplace, magic, psychics, fairies, aura, and Pokémon in general, are fiction." The lucario contributed, sneaking away a box of cigarettes Grovyle couldn't tell where they had been for life of him. "Didn’t get much time to freak out over becoming a Pokémon myself; wound up getting punted clean off my old multiverse and into this one, while accidentally 'borrowing' access to Void-structures from a third. The conflicting meta-laws could have killed me."
"It turns out..." Chandy interjected. "That all of the stuff Legion got? They are not supposed to go into Pokémon." She bobbed from side to side. "Correction, they can go and have gone into Pokémon, but not all of them at once into a single one!"
"Unless it's Mew, Celebi, or a higher Legendary of the sort." Gardevoir supplemented. "Thankfully, it was a problem that already had a solution; the forces involved helped me out and simply started splitting until I was enough compatible non-legendary 'mons, since I haven't earned any of that, and then kept splitting because I still needed to fit the vessels prepared - i.e. the pokémon."
"So... that means you can help us go back home?" Quilava asked hopefully, trying to get back on track.
"I'll eventually be able to, once the ghosts and the Porygon 2 and Z bodies actually find worlds and ways to enter them." Gardevoir grunted. "I'm still way too new to this; if it were some of my alternate versions, like Typhon, Echidna, or Quetzalcoatl, they'd be able to just will it so."
"You can't keep comparing yourself to them - you're only a few weeks into the transformation, while all of them have much more experience." Chandy plopped down onto his head, rapping it with an arm again. "So none of that, mister."
"I can't really help it." Legion replied, rubbing his eyes with a hand. "My thing is mind and logic, choices... Not just my enemies'; I'm already predisposed for introspection, and all of them are me, and I'm them. We just got different powers and landed in different places, because we chose different things. I can see that, and-"
"It's worrying." Lucario interrupted, a cigarette ready on her lips. "I know I'm capable of many things because I have seen them in others, but, eh, I'm gonna go for a patrol around the beach. Malamar shows his ugly mug, I'm gonna walk to him enthusiastically." She ignited the tip of a claw to light up, walking away. "Minty, must've seen myself taking 'em from me."
"This just answered one question and gave us a hundred more." Snivy commented, her droll tone revealing her mood without need for psychic powers. "Is it safe to have a blood-thirsty lucario walking around like that?"
"It's actually very stabilizing. Pokémon are already a little battle-crazy, more than I've ever been - my bloodlust isn't actually that big of a part of my personality, even now as a Pokémon - and the inherent aura flow of the entire evolutionary line that results in their sense of justice makes mood swings much less severe or frequent. That's why I chose Lucario for that."
"So... how will you know you have the right world when you find one?"
"An excellent question that turns out is much easier than it sounds - I'm psychic, and an empath, and your bond with Ash is so strong I'm actually wondering why I didn't work out your identities earlier."
"So, Pokémon are fictitious, but you know us anyway." Grovyle pondered out loud. "Ash's life is a cartoon, isn't it?"
"Yes!" Chandy pipped in. "I'm a fan ever since Legion told me about it!"
Grovyle extended an arm towards Pikachu without looking, and the mouse grumbled, slapping two thousand Pokén onto the claw of the 'smug lizard Casanova wannabe'.
"How long was it? Is it popular?" Snivy asked, smiling cruelly as Pikachu groaned into his palms. "Why Ash?"
"His life is packed, so it's insanely popular, giving us - to date - over twenty days worth of episodes put back-to-back, discounting movies of course." Legion then started doing further calculations. "Over fifteen if you take out the commercials, and you can squeeze it under fifteen if you take out the intro and ending credits as well."
"I used Trick Room to watch them all!" Chandy giggled, making Legion turn to her as much as he could with her on top of his head.
Snivy extended an arm as well, not bothering to hide her amusement, unlike Grovyle. Another two thousand Pokén from the beleaguered leader.
"That's what you were doing four hours a day, four a night, each day, for all of last week?"
"That, and My Little Pony, and a few others. You kind of went overboard with the Time Compression ratio."
"Why?" Pikachu bemoaned, then hissed out as discreetly as he could manage. "We're not the only ones! That... samurai whose name I never learned kicks Genesect periodically; we still get e-mails from Giselle whining about an Articuno or whatever messing up her laundry and having to go slap it around until they stop! Tobias actually travels with Legendaries!"
"As I said, packed." Legion shrugged as the food arrived.
Two mixed berry salads for the grass-types, and burgers with fries for the others. Chandy abstained from ordering, simply going for a partial possession to enjoy the food by proxy, phasing a bit of her main body into Legion's shoulder.
"The burgers look homemade." Quilava commented.
"And they taste like it, too." Legion said with a smile, getting ready to dig in. "One of the benefits of learning alchemy is always having fresh food, meat included; which is a relief because I have a lot of mouths to feed."
He paused, bemused.
"That sounds really weird, even if it's true from a point of view different than the usual."
"Tell you what, the building that we - mostly Legion - just had restored is empty for the time being; let's meet up there, all of you and some of us, and we'll see what comes from that."
"It's utterly empty, though; the furniture was too old and didn't survive the rampage."
"We'll make do! Just use Musharna mist, not like you're doing much with the excess other than reenacting music videos."
"See that, Quilava? Just as I told Pikachu the other day; just find the quirky ones, they'll know something."
"Might as well see if we can save on the inn fees..."
Slightly later, there was a relatively small roar of rage that sounded like a female lucario screaming "why did they have to be so many!" followed shortly by an explosion that sounded remarkably like two Sacred Sword attacks dual-wielded boosted with a Thunder Punch channeled through the blades hitting a gyarados that was just not learning his lesson of not stirring up trouble in the name of a really unpleasant malamar.
The secondary roar that sounded like the lucario screaming "this is really rotten luck!" was lost among the sound of something not unlike the aforementioned gyarados hitting the water.
The other Legions had a much easier time of suppressing their reaction, mostly because Bloodlust absorbed the violent ones, as per her function.