[Video]

[ordalias]

... what happened?

[ Guess who's finally awake! And also staring and blinking at that Ninetails staring back at her. Preeeetty sure that's not her pokemon. Bell, on the other hand, is chirping happily and flying around in circles. There's a roar outside. Despite all this noise, Xion notices the seashell by her pillow and picks it up, staring

Comments

[Video]

[usedfeint]

Some bugs happened. They got me, too. [Ritz is making a face.] When you're feeling better, if you want to get some of your own back, you can help catch them. It makes me feel better about the whole thing, anyway.

The black pokeballs around cities and stuff are meant for the soul-stealing bugs.

[Video]

[ordalias]

Some of my own...?

They're still around?

[Video]

[usedfeint]

Yeah. Like... revenge, I guess. Feeling like you're getting back at something that hurt or scared you.

And there might be some- other people who didn't get affected were capturing them, and I think some of us who woke up earlier have been working on catching them, too. I know I have.

[Brenda has decided this is high time to preen her trainer's... head-scarf thing. Oh, comedy.] --Brenda, no! I told you to leave it!

--sorry.

[Video]

[ordalias]

I see. Yeah, there's that... [ Well, if she wasn't feeling so off. Urgh, woke up on the wrong side of the bed, indeed.

Xion watches the exchange, and just that bit manages to make her smile a little. ]

Your pokemon seems very proud, though. Thank you for helping.

[Video]

[usedfeint]

Especially if something bad happened in... wherever you ended up, it helps. [And this is as close as Ritz will come to admitting that she maybe sort of had an encounter with Silent Hill as remembered by Heather.]

Yeah, with good reason. If you have a pokemon that's super-effective against a ghost-bug, that's all it takes. They can't be hit by anything else, but they also crumple like paper in the face of anything that would be super-effective.

[Video]

[ordalias]

[ She hears the tone, and though she's someone she doesn't know very well, Xion still extends a figurative helping hand. ] Are you alright?

What type or types are they? My attack didn't work on them when I tried to capture one.

[Video]

[usedfeint]

People keep asking me that. [Ritz is laughing a little.] I am, though.

They're ghost and bug. Fire works, and so does flying, I know that much for certain.

[Video]

[ordalias]

That's good, then.

Ghost... I haven't had much experience with those.

[Video]

[usedfeint]

If it helps any, none of that stuff was real at all.

I haven't either, so I'm just basing everything I say off of them being bugs.

[Video]

[ordalias]

... Maybe it wasn't now.

Their appearance did resemble a bug, but appearances can't be relied on sometimes.

[Video]

[usedfeint]

Yeah.

Well, fire and Brenda here do really well against them, so I guess they are bugs.

[Video]

[ordalias]

But bugs that steal souls...?

[Video]

[usedfeint]

I've seen enough weird stuff that soul-stealing bugs is just a little creepy, not something completely unbelievable.

[Sorry, Xion, she lived in a world made from the unholy offspring of a few people's subconscious desires, a video game, and a musty old book. Soul-stealing bugs are totally believable.]

[Video]

[ordalias]

[ She's seen her fair share of weird, too. It's more of a curious question, something for Xion to chalk up to more oddities of this world. ]

Your world has something weirder than that?

[Video]

[usedfeint]

We have a magic book that made a dream-world out of what ends up being a few odds and ends, so yeah, I guess.

[Video]

[ordalias]

That's some magic book. Maybe that's what happened with us, only... not a book.