OCTOBER EVENT PT1

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→ EVACUATION STUFF

(click to expand- aka getting people out of here)

The water level keeps rising, the storm refusing to abate even after two months of non-stop rain and circulating whispers of an even greater danger: an erupting volcano, threats of subsequent tsunamis, and Toran right there in the blast zone. There has already been one casualty. Jiro, after going missing for a week and a half, was found washed up on the beach. Probably drowned, they say in regards to his cause of death and never investigated further, not realizing that the band of tattooed fire around his neck has disappeared. While there is a very real possibility the island will become inhabitable very quickly and very soon, many townspeople are worried about leaving, with the storm swelling in response to anybody leaving the island in the past and if evacuation tips the situation over the edge... well... at this point, though, there's little other choice. Homes and other buildings get boarded up over the days counting down to the end of the month, berry trees get chopped down to construct as many boats as possible, all the Pokemon in the Daycare get returned to their balls and loaded into crates. The Pokemon Center becomes a shelter for those unable or unwilling to leave while the rest head out, the first of the boats pushing off the north shore at dawn.

With boats carrying six people each, families towards the center of the group and trainers with strong water Pokemon flanking them on all sides for protection, the evacuees steer northeast, veering out of the projected path of the volcanic activity in the northwest, with towering waves, jagged reefs, and whirlpools every several dozen feet dictating travel. Even with their own Mudkip, trainers who try to leave on their own will find it too difficult to cross the sea, with too many whirlpools for one little Mudkip to handle on their own and the storm forcing them to turn back around. It takes a group effort to carve a safe path away from the island, especially when thunder starts to rumble overhead, storm clouds so thick the sky becomes black as night.

The roar is almost deafening, encompassing and full of rage. Boats lurch to the side, caught in whirlpools that threaten to suck them under until the Mudkips in the group are able to reverse the whirlpool and calm the water, other water Pokemon pressing up against the boats to keep them upright as ten-foot waves crash down over people's heads, torrential rain unrelenting and there is no escape from the lightning that flashes across the sky. Trainers with electric Pokemon use them as lightning rods to redirect the lightning away from the others, and other Trainers direct their Pokemon as best they can to block the lightning as the ships cross the sea. Nanami's Marshtomp leads the group, clearing the path and searching desperately for any sign of land on the other side, while Minato's Yamask zips from boat to boat, using Protect to shield them from the lightning, but there is no end in sight.

In that moment, the sky turns white. There is light, there is silence, and the rain snuffs out all at once. Those who think to turn around might see Minato on his feet at the very rear of the group, two shimmering figures fading away into the sunlight behind him just as he topples backwards into the water. For everybody else, their attention is drawn by the deafening screeching that pierces the air, black clouds parting to reveal blue sky and a shining sun for the first time in two months. With the parting of the clouds and the subsequent silence, they hear a muffled boom out in the far distance, a spew of fire, and a plume of black smoke. There's your volcano, and here is the swell of the ocean that pitches the boats forward, driving them east.

→ FOR THOSE WHO ARE STAYING

(click to expand - have fun drowning)

The flash of white is noticeable even from the island, the first warning before the clouds part of their heads and the rain comes to a stop. Without the veil of rain constantly blurring their vision, the people who remain can clearly see the tsunami heading their way, waves upon waves dipping and rearing their heads as they slam into the coast and out across the island. A foot- two, ten- the water level rises too quickly for anybody to run, even the lake rising and spilling out as those in multi-story buildings try to make it to the highest floor possible. Drifloons float out and try to grab onto stragglers and drag them to safety, but they're too light and weak and all they can do is inflate themselves as much as they can and be buoys for those stranded to cling to for dear life. From the lake, the Gyarados takes advantage of the overflow and urges its Magikarp towards the north side of the island along with it— and stops in surprise when it spots Akira. Why did this human not ditch the first chance he got? This is not his home, there is nothing important for him to protect here...

The Gyarados turns to stare out at sea. And with its eyes glowing red, the wind starts to pick up, a Hurricane building and whipping the air all around the Gyarados as it faces the tsunami and roars, parting the waves to either side of the island before they can reach the shore. Two little Magikarps splash next to the Gyarados in encouragement, and for the next hour, Gyarados weathers the tsunami until the sea calms down, and the world is quiet and still once more. It looks back at Akira, at the friends who stayed behind with him, and approaches him for the first time. If he wishes, the Gyarados will allow him on its back and it will carry him and company across the sea to join his friends in the northeast; if he does not, the Gyarados and its family slips into the water and disappears.

Either way, maybe we'll meet again someday.

→ FOR THOSE WHO ARE LEAVING

(click to expand - have fun camping)

Eventually, the boats bump against the soft sand of a sunny shore. It's warm, the air strangely dry, but welcome compared to the constantly rainy Toran. Not far from the coast is a grove of wild berry trees, overgrown with fruit that a herd of Girafarig and Stantler surround, pausing in their grazing as they watch the soggy mess of evacuees drag themselves onto shore, a little Yamask flitting around from person to person trying to find her blue-haired boy. A small group of water type trainers offer to take the boats back to Toran and make a second evacuation now that they know the path and the storm has quelled- for the time being, anyways, and ask around to borrow or trade for the Mudkips who are able to temporarily reverse the whirlpools. Everybody else is encouraged to find the closest town, and call for shelter and for help.

The forest before them is thick with trees, so dense that the sun everybody's sorely missed is barely visible past the canopy, forcing the group to stay packed together as they search for a path through the forest. Nothing stops the brave or the foolish from peeling off from the group and trying to find their own way, but the children are quick to warn anybody who will listen that following flickering lights in the forest is a bad idea. There is constant rustling in the forest, swift movement out of the corner of your eyes, the feeling that somebody is watching you. It is very dark, very crowded, and like the sea, it is vast and endless. For several nights, the group is forced to camp, taking turns keeping watch and heading out at the first sign of sunlight, but here and there they come across trainers in the woods, surprised to see so many people at once but always willing to spare what little food they have and to point them towards the closest route to town.

Five days after leaving Toran, the evacuees stumble out of the forest and stand before Mango city. While the forest borders half the city, the other sides are wide open plains, fields and pastures as far as the eye can see, all full of grazing Pokemon and flocks of flying types circling the skies. Continuing north, one would find themselves facing the sea; to the east, the forest and eventually the sea once more; and to the west past the endless plains, a severe sandstorm rages that makes further progress impossible.

The city itself is much larger than Toran, with steel and concrete buildings that feel almost out of place amongst all the wilderness surrounding it on all sides. But the people are welcoming, the Pokemon Center accommodating both Pokemon and trainers with plenty of space to rest after a harrowing journey. Many families offer their own homes for refugees to stay in, while others pool together money and volunteers to head to Toran for relief measures in the aftermath, and local children take any stranger's hand to show them around the city.

The pride and joy of the city is............. the boba shop!!!! The specialty flavor for this shop is Miltank milk tea, a classic. Make sure to stop by the shop and get your card stamped with the green Butterfree, unique to this city's shop. The city also features its own contest hall and Pokemon Gym, with its gym leader specializing in Steel Pokemon; a museum filled with skeletons and fossils of ancient Pokemon; an art gallery featuring both prominent and local artists, with a special event every Wednesday where artists offer to draw portraits of visitor's Pokemon; and a bug catching contest hosted every Sunday that awards trainers for catching the largest or heaviest bug Pokemon within a two-hour window. Everybody arrived just in time to see the Vivillon migration, where all twenty different types can be seen fluttering across the sky, meeting together over this city for several weeks before scattering all across the globe before winter. Two towers pierce the sky right in the middle of the city: one a cemetery and one a radio tower, positioned right next to each other and the buildings almost seem to be humming the closer you approach their doors. There are also multiple barbeque restaurants in the city, grilling up Miltank and Bouffalant and Tauros, you're welcome, Cliff. Still, the boba shop is where several of Toran's children still insist on going, latching onto Joonghyuk and Sagi who promised them a three-tiered cake with sprinkles and a magic show and a party!!! We escaped the island. A town might be wiped out because we veered away from the volcano, and Toran is half-drowned and will take several weeks to drain and return to normal, but never mind that. Party.

It's warm, it's dry, there is always a faint static in the air and there has been no phone or radio signal for the past two months. Enjoy your respite.

→ MOD NOTES

⬥ Congrats on surviving September! October will be a no-plot month, so please take the chance to be good to your characters and build up that cr, but there will still be opportunities for investigation!
⬥ Minato will be presumed missing until after Ori's murdergame is over, and cannot be found at sea. The Gyarados and the Magikarp also cannot be found, but may return at a later date. Toran will dry out and return to normal towards the middle of the month, but characters can freely travel between Toran and Mango by catching a ride with one of the sailors whenever they like.
⬥ For those who wish to trade their Mudkips with one of the sailors, please comment to the questions toplevel for your rng options. Traded Pokemon tend to grow stronger quickly, but they might not always listen to their new trainer! Traded Pokemon are allowed to gain 15 levels per month rather than the usual 10.
⬥ Please comment to the appropriate toplevel on the Pokemon info page for challenging the gym or participating in the contest hall.
⬥ Please comment to the bug-catching contest toplevel by October 10 if your character would participate. We will rng three winners, one for each Sunday of the month, and reply with your prize. Characters may choose to either keep or release their bug Pokemon at the end of the contest.
⬥ As a reminder, the Halloween event log will be posted on October 15!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Owowowowow okay that actually hurts a lot!!! He raises his hands in a gesture of pacification-slash-surrender.]

F-Fine, fine, I apologize!

[ Good. Hien finally lets go. Maybe his cheeks will bruise for a bit... sorry for your pretty face, Hythlo. ]

For the record, I only ever adopted kids.

[Hythlo leans back when he's finally let go of and hisses, rubbing his cheeks. Boy that's gonna be fun tomorrow.]

You are much stronger than I would have thought, Hien! But I must warn you, I have learned nothing. If such things worked, I would have stopped long ago.

[He got his ass kicked by his friend on the regular.

Hien only adopting kids makes sense, though, given what he knows about the man. It would be... strange, at the very least, to father a child and then have to leave the world, never getting to see your progeny grow up. Hien doesn't strike him as the kind of person who would do that... and, perhaps, at this point he sees himself as far enough removed from other humans to have no desire for such entanglements overall. Hythlo thinks that he would, too, were he in Hien's position.

But that sounds a little too heavy to talk about after the ridiculous prelude, and besides, like he said, he's learned nothing.]

I did not figure you for the bashful type.

[He says, despite having seen Hien die at compliments or having to play a sociable persona.]

[ Okay, he lied. He wasn't done. He reaches out to pinch his cheek again. No mercy. ]

Bashful, my foot.

[ Like hell he's going to admit that. Maybe Chloe's guess of him being a tsun isn't too off the mark... ]

[Hythlo laughs again despite the pain, but look, officially he already got his due, so he's allowed to retaliate. He grabs Hien's wrists to a) try and pull his hand away from his face; b) not let him get at the other cheek again.]

Come now, 'twas a compliment!

[ Hien quietly huffs and stops his attempt when Hythlo grabs his wrists. ]

I don't take compliments very well.

[ You don't say... Hien looks at Duri though, who's still sleeping with the Flareon. He really looks too much like him. He even slept through all that. Guess the kid is a heavy sleeper. ]

[He seems to be bent on his own destruction.]

You do tend to freeze up when I say something nice about you.

[He bends down a little to look at the kid over Hien's shoulder.]

... How did you meet the child? And I fear I still do not understand about your Pokemon becoming human...

[ He won't say anything about the first part as he continues to look at Duri while petting the Nincada kid. ]

He just came up to me and said I was his dad, so now I'm stuck babysitting him until I find his real parents.

[ Hien lets the kid call him dad anyway, because when a kid is super adamant about something and you deny it, they tend to cry. He doesn't need that. ]

I don't really get it either--the part about them becoming human. I don't know how or why this happened. Nincadas don't usually turn human and that goes for most pokemon too.

Most Pokemon?

[This is wild.]

Would you like me to help you look for his parents? I did not have plans for today.

Oh, no. It's fine. They'll show up eventually today... just don't know when. The police like taking their sweet time.

[ He filed it already, so it's all good. ]

There's one pokemon that can turn into anything. It's called a Ditto and it looks like a pink blob.

[Well, at least it's a relief that the kid's parents will be found. Hythlo would be happy to keep the three of them company in the meantime and play with Duri again if he wakes up before the parents get here. He's good with kids.]

Oh... I do not think I've seen that one. You seem quite knowledgeable about these creatures, Hien!

... Yeah.

[ There's really no way of saying that he is without saying he's a huge nerd if he expands on it further, but how else does he explain it...

Oh. ]

Pokemon knowledge was pretty common in a lot of worlds, mostly among the young audience. They weren't real like they are here though.

[Well, now that Hythlo thinks of it, he's pretty certain Nanami had said something to that effect...]

... I'm not certain I quite understand. So this is an imaginary world?

This world is real.

[ Hien says this without hesitation. ]

What isn't real somewhere else, could be real in another place. For all I know, this world could have been the basis of the knowledge in other worlds, seeing as worldhopping is somehow possible here with the foreigners being here.

[ One time when Hien actually sounds smart. ]

... Strange, is it not? It makes me wonder if our worlds exist here in some form as well. Like stories, or mayhaps dreams...

[... Actually, this conversation reminds him of something.]

Hien, may I ask you something? Have you ever visited parallel worlds?

[ Hien doesn't want Hythlo to start having an existential crisis, so he doesn't say anything about the first inquiry, because he has seen an entirety of a world being condensed into a series of novels in another world.

As for the second one... well, for simplicity's sake, he counts parallel worlds as just regular worlds too. That's why there seems to be an infinite amount. ]

Yeah. What about it?

[He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. There is something about the situation that's reminiscent about their first meeting.]

... Then they truly exist, yes? And if one has the knowledge, it is possible to navigate to them?

[ Maybe because they're both sitting on benches on a nice day in Mango City, except there's a kid that isn't Hien's and another kid that used to be a pokemon. ]

... More or less. Though parallel worlds can be a little redundant.

[ How should he explain this... he hates explaining things, but he'll do his best for Hythlo since it seems to be a serious inquiry. ]

Just from having one person get out of bed on the different side can create a parallel world, where everything is the same except that.

[ That's why it seems infinite. ]

However, not all worlds can have a parallel one. Some worlds are simply locked into a single timeline without alternatives.

[He hums, staring at the ground. His heart falls at that last revelation, but... no, there must be a way. His world could not be one of those without an alternative, given that both Rhel and Joss are here.]

... I see. That does appear strange, however... I wonder what dictates the difference between static and branching worlds?

[ Hien falls quiet at that. He won't lie to Hythlo, but there are only several types of people who wonder about alternate worlds, and he's banking on the possibility that Hythlo wants something to change, or just know that there's a possibility that something didn't happen that would make him feel at peace. He quietly breathes out while petting Nincada kid. He's listening to everything, but doesn't understand anything. All he cares about is not being blinded by the sun and headpats. ]

It's their foundation type. Parallel worlds are made by branching off, but the source had to come from somewhere. It's just how they're made. Though there has been extremely rare times when a single timeline was forced to branch off into a single parallel world, but it didn't end well. As for the other way around...

[ ... ]

It's when I exist in that world.

[Hythlo leans back, smiles a little sadly.]

Oh dear, there go my hopes of asking you to pay us a visit and maybe fix our world while you're at it.

[Despite the tinge of sadness, his voice is mostly joking, though. He wouldn't actually wish that on Hien--that's not a burden someone should carry unless they decide to.

But, well, on the bright side he's pretty certain that this gives him enough proof that his world is one of the branching ones. All that's left is finding a way to travel to the branches... and setting up some more preparations, of course. Simple enough!]

[ The reason why Hien just gives out this sort of information easily is because it's not his business on what they do with it. Should someone happen to interrupt the balance of a world, he'd be there. And that would be the end of parallel worlds and his job to upkeep the status quo of what has been working already. That's his only responsibility, but even so. He can't help but to say: ]

I hope you won't do something you regret.

[Hythlo just puts his hands behind his back.]

Oh, I am sure I won't. But then again, there are few regrets a dead man can have, hmm?

[ Hien stays quiet again, looking down at the top of Nincada kid's head. ]

... You're alive now, Hythlodaeus.

[ It's barely a murmur, but it's there. ]

[Hythlo just chuckles, a little apologetically, and reaches over to ruffle Hien's hair a bit again.]

For now, yes.

premise ⬥ taken ⬥ faq ⬥ navigation

→ EVACUATION STUFF

→ FOR THOSE WHO ARE STAYING

→ FOR THOSE WHO ARE LEAVING

→ MOD NOTES

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