ohmyarceus | JUNE - JULY TEST DRIVE MEME

[Venkman picks up the call within seconds. And any of Winston's doubts about how serious Venkman was are probably shattered the second he hears the harsh intake of breath on the other end.]

God- it's been so long since I've heard your voice.

[He laughs- shakily.]

Yeah, probably sounds stupid to you- apparently, whenever someone shows up in this dimension, no time passes back home. Me, Ray, 'nd Egon've been here since Christmas Eve in this place.

... I knew you'd get here eventually. But why'd you have to take so long? I was starting to think it'd be another 12 or so years.

[Teasing, obviously- it's not like Winston had any actual control over getting here. But no amount of teasing can cover up the fact that there's a very slight waver to his voice, and Winston can definitely tell that Venkman is feeling some kind of emotional over this. No matter how he tries to hide it.]

[Brooklyn Supreme is not intimidated. The concept is far beyond her. For in order to feel such an emotion, she must first view another living creature as capable enough of holding enough power over her to be worth considering as a threat. Currently, she is living a life unfettered by such a fear.]

[Winston, meanwhile, is very worried about how this confrontation will turn out, for Brookie, for this clefairy, for its trainer, for the bystanders... and, distantly, for himself. But he could live with it turning out badly for himself.]

[He motions for the Pokéball in his pocket, slowly moving his hand into place so he can press the button to call her back inside of it if need be.]

...come on, Brook. Let's just back down from-

[Before he can even finish that sentence, Brookie throws down the gauntlet. ...well, she spits mud at Starchild's face. But metaphorically, a gauntlet was thrown.]

[As soon as that happens, without giving a second thought, Winston presses the button to call her back into the ball- ...but now guess who's the poor sap suddenly left all alone to deal with the very angry level 100 clefairy by himself? I'll give you a hint: his name rhymes with Princeton.]

[Oh.

Oh you're going there are you, Brookie? You want to die that badly?

Starchild starts laughing, but it's not a happy laugh. It's a cruel laugh of someone she's about to murder and she's excited to see the life drain from their eyes.

She puts her hands together, and produces an orb of purely dark energy. She continues laughing as the orb gets bigger and bigger. She doesn't care that Winston put away Brookie, he's the one who's caring for that jerk so he deserves to suffer.]

Edited 2019-07-23 18:11 (UTC)

[With some effort, he manages to summon the strength to roll himself onto his back, holding the Pokégear out above himself so he can get a good look at the video feed of whoever's talking to him now. ...this guy does look a little familiar to Winston, but it's the kind of "familiar" where he's sure they've never actually met. ...might be somebody from a movie he saw once.]

Yeah, you're right about that. [Now if only he had access to any of that equipment...] Should really keep my guard up in a place like this. Thought I could at least spare a few seconds to capture that joke in the moment... then the next thing I know, I wind up getting decked... and by something that looks like a class two, at best.

[Winston turns the screen around a bit to bring the gastly that attacked him into frame. It looks into the camera, scowls, and sticks its tongue out.]

...albeit a class two in real bad spirits. [The gastly blows a raspberry at that pun.]

Edited 2019-07-23 21:48 (UTC)

[Just when she's about to throw her Shadow Ball, a voice comes crying out.]

Starchild what are you doing!

[Ray was just going to check in on his child when holy shit why is she using an attack???

He runs up to stand between Starchild and Winston - unfortunately he's too focused on saving this man from getting murdered that he didn't get a good look at him yet.

Starchild pouts and poofs away her Shadow Ball. Ray seems satisfied by this and goes to scold her.]

Look, I know you're proud of how strong you are, but you can't solve all your problems by fighting people!

[Starchild makes a squeaky sound, and whether Ray can understand her or he's just filling in the blanks is a Mystery.]

I know you're upset, but that's still no excuse! I want you to apologize to this man.

[She pouts and turns away from Ray.

... Winston might want to say something because otherwise this might take awhile.]

[Winston knows Peter well enough that he instantly feels a gaping hole form in the pit of his stomach hearing this much vulnerability coming out of him. It... comes as a real shock to find out he's been this worried in Winston's absence.]

[...and it's not just because of the difference in time between their perspectives. But he doesn't want to linger on that thought.]

Hey, it's not stupid. I mean, Fleischmann spent forty years in that cartoon world of his- and he didn't age a day. We know different dimensions have their own rules about how time works in them. ...I believe you about this.

...and you know me, I've learned to accept a lot more out-there stuff as true in the past. We've been through it together.

[...]

...I'm sorry. If I knew you were here- if I knew how long it's been for you here- I would've put everything off until we were caught back up again.

[Egon seems to perk up at the words "class two" as he leans closer to the screen, peering at the stranger and adjusting his glasses.]

Ah, so you're familiar with the categorization of supernatural spirits. Excellent, excellent. You're much less prone to being harmed once you gain a base knowledge of their tendencies and are able to apply it to the field.

[He seems...almost excited about this? He clears his throat before he gets ahead of himself.]

I work first-hand with research on the unnatural world and study ghosts, myself. Though, to be quite honest, the spirits of this world seem to be much less malevolent than the ones I've encountered in my home dimension. I doubt they would allow them to be captured if they weren't able to calm them.

... Cartoon world's not a bad analogy. Full of colorful little animals. Can't die in this place. Everything operates on its own, weird little logic.

Not your fault, Win. Don't worry about it.

[His voice takes on a far more energetic quality- the heavy emotion is still there, but it's smothered in genuine excitement.]

Now we just gotta get a train ride over to you, and I'll fly or warp down to meet ya- Ray and Egon haven't been to Viridian before, so they'll have to be late. Which means I get you all to myself for a while...

[He couldn't even wait five minutes to say some dumb shit huh]

[Ray's interference comes as a pleasant surprise to Winston, for a number of reasons- not the least of which being that he's just been saved from getting hit by a nasty-looking ball of death coming from a cantankerous clefairy. ...that would've been a pretty embarrassing way to go for somebody that's fought and survived so many malicious gods and near-apocalyptic threats to the universe.]

[Of course, Ray was always there with him to save the day in the past, so it only feels fitting that he'd be the one to step in here. ...but more than that, Winston's relieved to finally see a familiar face in a place like this.]

[...even if it looks like Ray hasn't caught up to that just yet.]

...kids sure can be a handful, huh, Ray?

Edited 2019-07-24 19:13 (UTC)

[Ray doesn't look at Winston just yet; still distracted by his unruly child.]

Tell me about it. I adore Starchild but I wish she'd just understand-

[Wait.

He knows that voice.

Ray whips around and stares in shock at Winston for almost a minute.]

Winston?!

[HOLY SHIT.]

[He laughs a little at Ray's reaction, giving him a warm smile.]

Yeah- might be hard to tell under all the glop, but it's me.

Sorry about... Starchild, by the way. I've got my own little troublemaker on my hands- [Winston turns Brookie's Pokéball around in his hand, showing it to Ray.] ...I don't think she meant any harm, though. Just can't help herself from making a mess of things.

[Ray's eyes shine and he immediately clings to Winston, not minding the mud at all.]

Winston! I missed you so much!

I'm so sorry Starchild almost killed you! [He turns back to Clefairy.] You better apologize now, young lady, or else you won't be getting any deserve this week!

[Starchild, still pouting, turns and makes a squeaky sound to Winston that almost sounds like an "I'm sorry".]

[Winston steadily shifts himself up into a cross-legged sitting position on the ground, giving a sideways glance at the Pokegear as he listens to this stranger speak.] It's something I picked up on the job... like I said, I'm a ghostbuster.

...and with the way you're talking, it sounds to me like you're something of one, yourself. [...specifically, he sounds a lot like Egon. Both in terms of voice and the way he talks like that... all blunt and technical. It's kind of uncanny, actually- in a way that's getting him to question that nagging sense of familiarity he brushed off as just recognizing him from a movie-]

[...that's it- he looks just like the guy that played Egon in the movie!]

Hey, the name "Egon Spengler" wouldn't happen to mean anything to you, would it?

[The levity returning to Venkman's voice gives Winston some much needed relief from his worry- ...okay, he's still a little concerned as to how Venkman knows death isn't possible here, and what that implies about where this world's ghosts come from. But a discussion about that is more Egon and Ray's speed, anyway. And if Peter's right about them not coming over for a while...]

So, I'm all yours and you're taking the train to get to me? Man... my heart goes out to the conductors- you're wild enough about riding the rails as-is, I don't know if they'd be able to handle you when you've got a date waiting at the end of the tunnel.

[He teases out of love.]

Oh, shut up. [Good-naturedly.] I could always make you do what I had to do to meet up with Egon and Ray, and walk all the way to Saffron yourself. That'll take a few weeks, even if you get a Pokemon you can ride like I did.

[More seriously, if the train ride to Ray and Egon back in February is any indication, it's far more likely that Venkman will spend the whole ride harassing Winston with constant messages, not the people on the train.

Technology is amazing.]

[Winston winces a bit when clung to at first, nervous about the mud rubbing off on Ray-]

[...however, after the initial shock, he quickly eases into the embrace, wrapping his arms around Ray to hug him back. When he pulls away to scold Starchild, Winston still keeps a hand on his shoulder, staring softly at him with a hopeful look in his eyes.]

Might've been just a day or two, but I was starting to get a little lonely, myself... You see Pete or Egon around here, too?

Uh-huh- so I take it I wasn't the only one that took the ferry. [~~What was that about him being a dick for going to Kanto again, Venkman?~~]

...you know, I might already have something that'd work as a ride... well, maybe not yet- she'd need to evolve first, but... Hang on, I'll send you a picture.

[file uploaded: BrooklynSupreme_Route1_1.jpeg]

[If Venkman opens it, he'll see a photo of Winston kneeling down in front of a sign that reads "ROUTE 1", with one arm slung around his mudbray, and the other holding the Pokégear's camera out in front of them both. Winston's giving the camera a good smile, while his mudbray has its head down, much more interested in licking a patch of dirt on the ground.]

[There's no good way to answer that, so he just rolls his eyes and declines to answer. And the image attachment makes it even easier to ignore that question, because seeing Winston's face again makes Venkman's heart hurt in ways he didn't think were possible. There's another sharp little intake of breath as he takes the image in, and he barely notices the Mudbray at first.

It takes a few seconds for him to actually respond.]

... Huh. I think you're the only one of us that might wind up with a ride Pokemon that isn't completely weird. Egon's got an eight-foot-tall centipede, for Christ's sake.

That sounds about right. [He'd be hard pressed to name a more "Egon" thing to do than "willingly decide to sit on the back of a massive venomous bug". Although... according to Venkman, he wasn't alone when it came to having an unconventional means of travel.]

[He almost doesn't want to ask, but...]

...should I be worried about the ride you took to get to Saffron.

... Well, they're definitely not one of the weirdest Pokemon we've got- and compared to most of Egon's, they're pretty normal. But here-

[Winston gets an image attachment of his own- "motherfucker.png".

Most of the pictures of Venkman's Dodrio are blurry as hell, and this is no exception. One head is throw back with its beak wide open; one eyes the camera with clear disgust; the third just looks like its slightly uncomfortable with whatever's going on here.]

They're one of the ones that's tried to kill me the most, if you're wondering. Or three of the ones. Never quite figured out which of those is the more accurate way to describe it.

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John isn't looking a gift horse in the mouth, exactly. The nice momly lady (maybe actually somehow his mom here, based on what he remembers about Pokemon) gave him a backpack sylladex with a bunch of free stuff in it, and she didn't have to do that. He actually kind of embarrassingly teared up when he found the packed lunch inside it (though if it happens in the forest when nobody is around to see it, did it really happen? Probably not. Nobody needs to know John Egbert cried over onigiri shaped like little seal faces.)

The problem he's having, here, is it's been kind of wet all day and the sun is starting to set and all he has for this situation in his backpack is a sleeping bag and nothing else. It's not as if he has any hidden wilderness survival skills: he hasn't done anything like that since, well. The world ended. Alice, his Swablu, is sitting at the base of a tree the rain hasn't soaked through yet and watching him with quiet interest as he rummages in his backpack.

"I guess I could set up this clothesline and hang a towel over it...somehow?" he says to the bird. Alice responds with a high-pitched peeping noise and lifts himself up and then down on his feet, settling back down like a ball with a face. "You have no idea either, huh. You would probably be just fine in this tree. What if we trade? You get me inside that Poké Ball and I will take a nap." Predictably, Alice cocks his body sideways in confusion and John sighs. "Yeah, that isn't something that works, is it. I will just have to..."

He trails off at the sound of someone approaching, turning towards the sound.

"Uh...hey," he says carefully to the newcomer. "Listen, can we do the battling thing tomorrow? I am kind of busy right now with my...tent." He lifts up a clothesline and a bath-towel indicatively. "I'm sure we can work something out."

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so i get that a lot of stuff here is going to work in a weird way because that is just how the game functions but i still have an important question.

do i keep the poke ball in small mode for small pokemon? does it even work to catch them if you don't expand it first? i saw one of those...flower babies yesterday and i was too worried to try and catch it because it is basically the same size as the ball and i think that might kill it if i throw it expanded, but, uh. if it doesn't work not expanded that would be like i am throwing a rock at a flower baby and i'm pretty sure that's animal cruelty!

the poke balls don't hurt in general, do they? it's hard to tell, sometimes, because i am throwing them pretty far.

Carly until recently was ambling down the road at a fairly good clip- Hei is pretty good at this carrying thing, and seems like a strange cloven hooved motorcycle the way she's run at times.

But it's approaching evening at this point, so the clopping has lessened to an even trot.

And then a stop, because...uh.

Huh.

"Eh...." Boy. Wow. "...That...doesn't really seem like a tent..."

John if she were in your shoes she'd have just balled that thing into a pillow and curled up in a tree honestly.

[Winston struggles for a bit trying to make out the image. ...but before he can even fully form an opinion about what he's seeing, he quickly shifts his focus from the picture to what Venkman says shortly after sending it.]

Peter-! [He blurts out in a fit of panic, before catching himself and trying to keep his voice down again... this is a library, after all.] Forget the terminology, what was that about them trying to kill you?

[Aw, would you look at that, he's worried.]

Ok, well, she's not...insisting on a battle anyway so maybe she's not a local game person? His shoulders relax a little, even as Alice shyly hops to hide behind his legs.

"No...it is pretty much the closest thing I have, though. I just started playing today." It feels strange, to be able to say he's playing a game again. "I didn't think the next town would be so far away." Ah, shit, it's really been a long time since he met anyone new. "Hey, uh, I'm John. Are you also doing this Trainer thing?"

"P....playing..." Carly laughs a little nervously, adjusting her glasses. "Y...You know, even though something's game like, that doesn't really...make it a game, I don't think..." She's spent too long with Dirk to really take this rolling over. Shit's Real Guys.

Anyway. "Mnh...sort of? Mostly I'm just trying to get as many teleports registered as I can~! Fast travel~" she cheers. "...Though, right now I'm just getting Hei-chan used to carrying people."

...

Oh yeah names. "Oh, uh! I'm Carly on that note! Carly Nagisa, nice to meet you! And if you think this route's long, just wait...some of these roads take a whole week of walking..."

JUNE - JULY TEST DRIVE MEME

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John Egbert | Homestuck (Meat Epilogue)

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