ohmyarceus | January - February Test drive

"Fuck."

There was a stump close by that Ichigo walked over and dropped down onto, pulling Vox out of his apron as he did so in case she wanted to explore. Once hand came up to comb through his hair as he looked at Grimmjow seriously. "I don't know what sent us or brought us to this place, but it didn't pull us from the same point in time. Probably by a few months, if I had to guess. The last thing that you remember before coming here is in the past to me."

Grimmjow frowns, stepping out of the strings and following Ichigo. His clothes beneath the strings was something more akin to a karate training outfit than the inverted shihakusho that he'd worn as an Espada, both his scars from his last battle with Ichigo and Nnoitra were visible, his estigma still under his eyes, but no hole and no mask. It was, to say the least, weird as hell.

"Yeah, well, when we find out I'm kickin' its ass," he huffed in irritation, folding his arms over his chest and glancing over his shoulder at the Cubone. "I'm fuckin' human," he said it quietly, like he was worried someone would overhear.

“Yeah, that makes two of us.” Ichigo grumbled softly as Vulpix stalked cautiously toward Cubone. He had his regular skinny jeans on with a long shirt and a green apron that gaped and hung low on his chest now that it wasn’t supporting his Pokémon. “Fucking hate it when it’s quiet in my head. So you ended up in this world same as me? Woke up in a bed with some strange woman calling herself your mother trying to rush you out the door?”

Cubone pokes its head up from the nest it was making when it senses the Vulpix getting closer, blinking up at her. "Cuuu?" it says softly, and shrinks down a little more in the strings that are already starting to dissolve. So much for the nest it's been working on.

Grimmjow nodded, sighing as he watched the pokemon and their cautious little introduction dance. "Yeah, an' I told her I ain't got a mother but she just shoved the bag in my arms and kicked me out the door. So I started walkin', and the little Fraccion started followin' me." So now Cubone was his. Kind of.

Ichigo rolls his eyes. "It's not a Fraccion. This world? Pretty sure it's the same as a game I used to play years ago with my sisters. He's something called a pokemon, his species just looks kinda like a hollow. But he's flesh and blood, just like you are now."

Vox trilled curiously, lifting a paw at Cubone. "Vul? Vul vulpix."

Grimmjow let out a low growl, watching the pokemon as they made friends with each other. "So, what, this some kinda hougyouku bullshit? I thought you killed Aizen," he kicked a pebble in Ichigo's direction with a scowl.

Cubone reached up, pressing its little paw to Vulpix's. "Cubone!" it said brightly, and dug its berry out of the pile of strings, holding it up for Vox to see, or maybe share.

"I have no clue. Back in our world, this place is a fictional world in a game series that was popular years back. And I didn't kill Aizen." Ichigo scowled, crossing his arms and looking away. "I tried. Burned out some of my own soul to do it, but even I couldn't do it."

Vox sniffed at the berry curiously before taking a cautious nibble. The taste had her tails wiggling happily.

Grimmjow grunted softly. "Well, he ain't around anymore, an' that's good enough for me," he decided, dropping himself into the dirt next to Ichigo's stump to watch their Pokemon. "So, if I can't eat souls... what the fuck do I eat? I don't remember shit about being alive," and Ichigo was the one person he wasn't embarrassed to ask.

Cubone cooed at her, taking a nibble from the other side of the berry with a happy little chortle. "Bone, bone!"

"Well, there should be some food in your backpack. But there's also things to forage for. I can help you figure out what's safe and what's not." Ichigo was willing to offer a bit of a smile at Grimmjow. "Also, the red thing? It's like a phone or a small computer. You can point it at berries like the one your Cubone has. Some are safe for people, too. But I don't think all of them are."

"Vul! Vul!" Vox sat herself down, eating from her side of the berry. The thing was quite large, and her mouth was small, after all.

Grimmjow pulled his bag off his back and yanked it open, digging everything out and setting it in front of himself. "I was wonderin' what the hell I needed all this junk for. Livin' bodies are a pain in the ass," he decided, plucking his pokedex out of the pile and attempting to point it at the berry. It took him a couple tries to get it to work, and scowled at the screen as it identified the berry. In text.

Cubone had an easier time of it, and ripped off a chunk of the berry with its little hands, holding a nice small one out for Vulpix.

The scowl made Ichigo raise an eyebrow. "What does it say? Is the text two small? And yeah, being alive has all sorts of downsides. Like bodily functions."

The offer had Vox shuffling forward, reaching to take the bite from Cubone. And then promptly wagging all her little tails in joy.

Grimmjow held the screen up for Ichigo to read, shrugging his shoulders defensively. "It says stupid shit," he decided.

Cubone giggled brightly at her, and started ripping the berry up into small and large chunks, using a little bit of stringshot as a plate and making sure to split the berry as closely to half as he could before sitting down to enjoy his big chunks. He may or may not have been blushing, it was hard to tell with the skull on his head.

"The alphabet here is fucking weird. But I think you can set it to speak the information to you?" Ichigo squinted at the letters, doing his best to interpret it. "Okay, I think the one they're eating isn't human safe. Which, hey, there's not much left anyway."

The way Cubone had divided the the berry had her trilling brightly. Once the makeshift plate was filled, she was more than happy to sit and tuck into it with gusto.

He relaxed a little when Ichigo put it like that, nodding his head. "Makin' it talk would be a hell of a lot easier," he agreed, and snorted at the pokemon. "Well, at least they know how t'feed themselves." One less thing for him to worry about. Cubone was his fraccione and he wasn't going to abandon the little guy, even if he was shit at fighting.

Cubone finished off his half and licked his little paws before getting up to run over to Ichigo. "Cubine!" he said brightly, waiving his little paws.

"I figured it out on mine, so I can walk you through doing it on your own." Ichigo suspected that the issue wasn't just the strange alphabet, but he wasn't going to comment on it. Yet. "And yeah, that's a good thing. I think there's probably food we can buy for them in towns, but if you have the same amount as me, it's not a lot."

Vox finished her own helping off and then trotted over next to Cubone. She promptly sat and started washing her paws and using them to wash her little fuzzy face.

It definitely wasn't, but Grimmjow wasn't ready to admit that just yet. "Thanks," he growled. "I wouldn't know what a lotta food is, anyway. How much is he supposed to eat? How often? Why don't they tell ya this shit?" He reached out, knocking his knuckle on Cubone's head gently.

The little pokemon wailed, waiving his little arms.

"Well, humans learn from example from our parents. But hollows don't have that, so it's gonna be a learning process." Ichigo dug out his own pokedex, guiding Grimmjow through a few screens. And then he kicked the man in the leg a little. "Don't bully 'im. He's still just a baby, basically."

Vox, as helpful as she could be, sniffed at Cubone's cheek. "Pix?"

Grimmjow huffed, but reached down to rub the spot he'd knocked. "Gross," he decided.

"Cuuuuu," Cubone replied, gesturing at Grimmjow and chattering at her, more or less telling her he was stuck looking after this giant pokemon that didn't know how to pokemon.

Ichigo just rolled his eyes and kept walking Grimmjow through the pokedex. "Okay, now check the third box down, and it'll speak the information from scans."

Vox nodded in understanding. "Vul. Pix." Her giant pokemon carried her like a pup, which was honestly pretty nice.

Grimmjow poked the third box, and let out a sigh of relief as the Pokedex responded with a "voice to text activated". "Thank fuck," he grumbled.

Cubone paused to think hard for a moment, then scampered to Grimmjow's unpacked items, grabbing the apron and bringing it over to Grimmjow, holding it up and bouncing a few times.

"I'm the one's in charge, bonehead," Grimmjow said, even as he was accepting the apron and looking it over.

Flipping his own 'dex shut, Ichigo put it back in his pocket. "Aizen wasn't big on reading, I'm guessing?" Seeing the apron had him smiling a little. "Ah, you have one, too." He reached down and picked Vox up, stroking her fur. "Far as I can tell, there's like two roles you can have. A pokemon trainer who tries to catch every kind of pokemon. And breeders, who work on getting pokemon to make babies with certain moves or with a rare coloration. They call them 'shiny' pokemon."

"No," Grimmjow agreed, trying very hard to pretend that they weren't talking, as he carefully pulled the apron on, tied it behind his back. "Just enough of th' numbers to know what captain we were killin'," and then he flashed Ichigo a feral grin.

The explanation of rolls, though... "Which kind's stronger?"

"Well, this alphabet is weird as hell, so we'll just learn it together, I guess." At least he had some experience with English, which the letters were kind of similar to.

"Y'know, I honestly don't know. I think breeders can get more loyalty than trainers, just 'cause you want the pokemon to be happy and like you so that they'll cooperate with the breeding efforts. But that's my opinion. But that apron means you've been assigned as a pokemon breeder, though." Vox yawned in his lap, pawing at the sagging front of his apron.

Grimmjow frowned down at himself, then looked at the Cubone. "D... do they just... split or somethin'? An' I thought you said this one was a baby," he eyed his Cubone warily as the little thing started climbing up his leg.

"Cu! Bone!" He grunted with each inch gained.

"They never really went into that in the game. I didn't play much, but my sisters did, and I think there was a place you could leave a male and a female pokemon at, and then when you went to pick them up there would be an egg to pick up, too. So I have no idea how they breed."

Ichigo helped Vox back into the front of his apron, then grinned at Cubone. "I think he wants you to carry him the way I have Vox. Which means you might need to loosen it around your neck."

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