ohmyarceus | March-April Test Drive Meme

Ah, Sasha, you can't! Don't eat those!

[Seeing a familiar face on the gear was somewhat unexpected, and in a moment, Armin will definitely feel pleased and ready to give her all the information her heart might desire (and lets be honest here, probably a lot more than she ever asked for) but first, there is one super, very important thing to make sure of.

Sasha cannot eat those berries.]

Armin!

[Well, that's a face she certainly did not expect to see here. Sasha could go on and on about where and when she last saw Armin, but that can come later. Later when he's not telling her she can't do something her heart and stomach desires the most.

She frowns at the screen, down to the berries, and then back up at him.]

Why not? It's not like I picked them off a strange bush somewhere.

[No, she just picked them off a strange lady somewhere. A gigantic difference.]

[That is hardly a difference at all!]

Those berries aren't like the ones we have back where we are from. They are fine for your pokemon to eat, but when eaten by a human the effects are... not very pleasant to say the least.

[It's a major difference! You city people just don't get it.]

Like what? A stomachache? I'm okay with having a stomachache if I'm not hungry anymore.

[And now she's opening her mouth in preparation of popping one right on in...]

That one will give you several hours of severe gastro-intestional distress.

[Do you want the shits, Sasha? Because that is what this comes down to.]

[Well, that pulls Sasha up short if just for a second, but not for the reason Armin was aiming for.]

Gastro-what?

[You can't go around dropping big words on her like that if you're trying to warn her, Armin. She's not the 104th bookworm like you.]

[Perhaps an example would work best.]

Do you remember that time during training when you found that spoiled cabbage the instructors had tossed out?

Yes. Yes, I do.

[Oh, how could Sasha forget that three day sickfest after she stole that cabbage? She thought she was safe if she just picked off the brown and slimy parts, but the fact of the matter is that without cooking it, she just made the entire situation worse for herself. The farts were bad enough. No one wanted to sit next to her in the mess hall. Not even Connie. Everything else that came along with it made Sasha consider how bad death by Titan mouth could be.]

Is that what's going to happen if I eat this one? [She's frowning at the berry again, looking like she's considering eating it anyway.] But I don't want it to go to waste.

[That's the worst crime of all, wasting food.]

Yes. Possibly even worse.

[Honestly, Armin understands not wanting to waste food. Both of them had felt the effects of the food shortages after the wall had fallen, but he doesn't think it is wise for her to make herself sick over it.]

The berries keep remarkably well. Your pokemon might be hungry for it later. And if it really doesn't like it, I can trade you some of mine. There must be at least one kind it will enjoy.

[Is that a whine? That's totally a whine. But at least she puts the berries back into the backpack that lady who claimed to be her mother gave her. Sure, Sasha tried to tell her exactly what happened to her real mom, but... whatever. At least the backpack is useful.

So was the box lunch inside of it which met a swift end as soon as Sasha discovered it.]

Do you have a Pokemon too? Is it like mine?

[And speaking of hers, enjoy that surprise shot of Deerling snoot in the camera as Sasha yells about it being rude again.]

[Good, Sasha, good. You've made the right choice. If you had devoured those berries, why you might go from potato girl to berry girl. Not an upgrade at all, huh?]

I do. We've been here for a while now so I have several now. In fact, I had one like yours too, though he has evolved now.

[Armin doesn't look exactly smug, because Armin doesn't do smug. But he does look very pleased with himself.

Really, he ought to show her. He goes through his pokeballs for a moment, before selecting one, and releasing the creature inside. Where Sasha's deerling is only a foal, his sawsbuck stands a proper adult. Honestly, with the dark coat and white fluff around his neck, he looks downright regal.]

I got him as a gift and he evolved several weeks ago. This is--

[He yelps when the big sawsbuck, really not to concerned with looking regal, sticks his snout down the back of Armin's shirt, snuffing at his neck and licking it.]

S-Sandy, don't!

[Look, as long as Jean doesn't see her eating said berries, no one will call her Berry Girl, alright? You wouldn't do that, Armin. You're too nice.

Once she nudges the foal out of the way, Sasha peers at the amount of Pokeballs Armin's collected. She only has two of the five balls she started out with, the rest gone on failed Pidgey captures. She isn't surprised he has that many Pokemon, though. Armin was always good at strategy.]

You have a lot... Which means Armin's been here a while, right? How long have you been here?

[Though she doesn't immediately expect an answer to her question once she sees the Sawsbuck go against its regal appearance and make a salt lick out of Armin. Besides, she has a better question to ask now.]

You named it Sandy?

[One look at the foal next to her and Sasha has made a easy decision. ]

You're not a horse, but I'm going to call you Jean.

[Someone please tell Sasha that this Deerling is a girl. She hasn't had a chance to check the undercarriage.]

[Ah, his neck. It's so cold, so wet, so covered in slobber right now.

Armin awkwardly fends off the sawsbuck's affections with one hand.]

It's-- his name is supposed to be Xander. But he doesn't listen to it very well.

[As a small deerling, it had been so easy to nickname him sandy based on the colour of his coat, and, well, Xander-- no, Sandy liked the sound of it a lot better than his full and proper name.]

And we've been here for... half a year now, I think. It's not just me either. Bertolt, Jean and Eren are here as well.

[She feels your pain, Armin. The back of her shirt is damp too from Pokemon spit.]

They probably just don't listen at all.

[Excuse you, Sasha. Jean 2.0 listens very well. Like right now, she's listening to you and Armin talk as she shoves her nose into your ear. Multitasking. It's a great skill.]

Half a year... That doesn't make sense.

[But then again, nothing does. There are so many things Sasha wants to ask Armin, knowin he's the best person to pump for information. It'll all fly over her head anyway, so Sasha goes for something simple and easy.]

Where are you all anyway?

A lot of things in this world are a little hard to understand at first.

[Like the fact that everything hatches from eggs, food is nearly free, and nobody is living in despair.

Thankfully, some things stay the same too. Jean having a crush on a girl is still a ridiculously embarrassing sight to behold.]

I can try and explain it to you later.

And right now we are on the Sevii Islands.

[Let's not forget they both suddenly have a mom. That's still throwing Sasha for a loop. A mom who made her a lunch. That's something she could easily get used to.

She pulls out the paper map from her backpack and unfolds it on her lap, trailing her index finger across it.]

Sevii, Sevii, Sevii...

[She continues mumbling until she pinpoints the islands in a little box in the corner.]

That's so far away.

[Is she whining? A little bit. She needs her 104th people!]

Well, we travelled for several months to get here, after all.

[Though, that was several months with some detours, some extended town stays and a lot of good ol' laziness. They could probably have made it there sooner if they had really lit a fire after their asses.]

Let me think about it, all right? There might be some way of getting you here without making you walk all that distance [There is the poke-ride system! Or maybe he can ask one of the friends he has made with pokemon that actually know fly.] I'll try to come up with something.

[That's not the kind of answer she wanted to hear. After spending years with these people, being separated from them--in a strange world at that--is a little disconcerting. Nothing she can't truly handle, but not something she'd prefer. ]

Okay.

[She nods, knowing Armin will find a way. He's a smart kid with all that fancy book learning.]

What do I do now? I ate the food that lady gave me and I tried to catch one of the birds, but Jean keeps scaring them away. I don't have my gear or my bow. Do I go back to the house?

[Or she can love on Jean who thinks that is a much better course of action and prepares to force Sasha's hand by laying her head on her lap and giving her actual doe eyes.]

[Armin ponders that.]

I think it would be best if you kept following the road to the nearest town. It's called Cherry Grove and shouldn't be hard to find.

[None of them had gotten lost on that road and Sasha was better with following paths than any of them. He figures that if he is going to find some way to quickly get Sasha to where they are, it'll be much easier to do so from Cherry Grove.

Though while he further ponders that, there is something--]

... are you really going to call your pokemon Jean?

[That road's not too far off to the west of her if the setting sun tells her anything. If there's a town there, there should be someplace to stay there like an inn. And where there's an inn, there's food. And luckily, she has that funny money in her pocket to carry her through, so much more than she's ever had in her life.]

Yes. [In those golden eyes of hers is the look of one very determined child soldier who has no intention on changing her decision.] It acts just like him.

[Stubborn? Check. Annoying? Check. Weird hair? Check. Lovable? Eh... she'll come back to that later.]

Might it not get a little weird when you've joined up with us?

[But then, Jean called his walking, farting trash bag Eren, so perhaps he needs to experience what it is like.]

[Sasha shrugs. What's weird in her world? Everything. Including her. A thing like this doesn't faze her much.]

Maybe, but he won't stop calling me names, so he can get used to this, I think.

[This is the most mean thing Sasha has done and probably will ever do.]

[Sounds like Jean will reap what he has sown. Armin should not interfere. He might keep Jean from learning something.

Though that does remind him of something he has to ask her.]

Sasha, this might sound like an odd question, but what is the last thing you remember from back home?

We were on the expedition out of Karanes District.

[That mission, that horribly failed mission where they lost so many lives and got no closer to reclaiming Wall Maria. Sasha probably doesn't have to say much more if Armin remembers how that ended. She doesn't want to have to say it anyway.]

[That is roughly in line with the rest of them, barring Eren who doesn't seem to remember the mission at all. It's something Armin files away inside of his head, just in case it ever comes up.]

Do you remember all of the mission? Coming home as well?

March-April Test Drive Meme

TEST DRIVE MEME

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