fuelthefire | Victory Road IC Contact

[The Pokegear turns on, propped against something on a table. Hank has some papers out, and one seems to be the designated 'whiskey glass' paper because that's where he intends all the stains to live. Otherwise it's more 'Lost Pokemon' print-outs.]

Hey, Krieg. You got some whiskey and some time? Get back to me soon. I promised Connor I wouldn't drink alone, and I think network shit counts.

Yeah sure just give me 40 minutes.

[That will give him enough time to find a liquor store, buy the liquor, and come back to the inn. Whatever inn that may be.]

[It's actually more like twenty minutes later when Krieg sets the gear to call Hank back. The liquor store was a lot closer than he thought, and also not busy at all on a Monday night. Go figure.]

What's up, Gramps?

[Hank sees Krieg and immediately starts emptying his glass. Like he was waiting for go-time because the presence of company, even network company, is sort of permission.]

So since people were turning into Pokemon and there were a lot of random souls heading in and out, I thought there'll probably be a bunch of 'lost' pokemon that were actually some guy in some poke's body.

So I figure we could bang out a way for us to tell differences right from the start.

[He's pouring another drink. He's 100% looking for distractions.]

[Damn. Krieg likes to knock back a few whiskeys as well as the next guy, but that was like a drinking-contest level chug.

But okay, sure, he's down for some light detective work (and heavy drinking???) with his buddy Hank.

He doesn't bother with a glass for his whiskey, just unscrews the cap and drinks straight from the bottle. If Maya wants any later, she'll just do the same.]

Yeah, okay. You got a plan?

[It's self-sterilizing! There shouldn't be any complaints.]

I guess the first ones we should start out with are the ones that went missing around the last few days, not the ones discovered and lost. But I'm guessing we should probably consider telling the Joys to put up some sort of fuckin'... Craig's List of 'Lost Connections' or something in the Pokecenters. Pokedex referencable.

Fuck if I know.

[He downs a quick mouthful.] Anyway, that's my idea. I'm sure in the confusion that gets caused, a few of the established Pokemon wandered off. [He's sort of half-ass scrawling these ideas on one of the pieces of paper he has.]

[Krieg squints and grumbles thoughtfully for a moment, reflecting on that information before asking his next question.]

Mmm...How many of those've you got? Lost pets and partners.

Anybody missing an Iron Skull...Mnng, Aggron, might be missing my buddy Sugar.

Right. Aggron. [He's actually writing that down, too.]

Duck girl said she was a ghost Pokemon. Forgot to ask which one she was because she was a duck girl and that kinda surprised me.

[Another swallow from his glass goes down the hatch. He misses the ability to get drunk, really drunk, pass out gross drunk like he used to. Damn this place's ability to maintain equilibrium. Still, he wants to get as drunk as possible, even if it ends with him writing down some weird shit that'd boggle the best philosophers.]

[They've been talking for what, like, a minute, and Krieg's already fallen way behind on the booze. So he takes another mouthful from his bottle, but at this point he's probably not going to catch up. Not like he's going to try. He's not super good at reading the room, but even he can tell that the atmosphere right now is all wrong for a drinking contest.]

Duck Girl? Who's that?

[That sounds like a very Krieg nickname, but he hasn't nicknamed anybody that.]

Maybe we should ask who else turned into monsters on the network.

[Krieg had been pretty busy setting himself on fire for most of the weekend, so Shiro was the only pokemon-ified friend he had encountered. But if Hank had met someone else, then there were probably even more.]

Lena. She's a duck normally. Same way Connor is an android back home. Except duck. Sorta took me by surprise.

But that's a good plan. I'm sure it's gonna come up, but one of us oughta do it and see who was monsters, and who remembers meeting any pokemon that were acting more like people than Pokemon.

[He leaves it open as to which should do it. As Krieg has been around longer and knows more people, and while Hank's a professional investigator, resources and contacts count for a fuck of a lot and he's well aware he's short on them.]

Anybody you know turn up, by the way?

[Processing...Processing...Ding!]

Oh, yeah, she said something about that! But she also said something about killing a money shark and being chased by evil unicorns.

[Guess which of those things Krieg thought was more interesting?]

D'you wanna ask, or should I?

[You're the professional investigator, Hank. Krieg's just a messed-up errand boy. A messed-up errand boy who actually takes a drink all on his own when Hank asks if any of his pals showed up during the weird weekend.]

Nope! Not even Claptrap.

[And Claptrap is on the very bottom of the list of people he wants to see again. He doesn't exactly miss Claptrap, but he also wouldn't be unhappy to see the little robot again, either. It's a weird relationship.]

Yeah. Mine either.

[He can try. He leans back for a moment and rolls his eyes up, thinking as he looks at the ceiling, squints some.] How about we give people about a week, see what they say out in the open, and then do a more specific inquiry... Thing. [Hank makes a roundabout gesture with his hand. Nothing they do is ever formal in any capacity. While it's also great, it's also buried in the shambling fuckedness of this place.]

I keep catching myself waiting for people to show up. And that's fuckin' stupid. Like what I told you and Lust, pretty much bullshit. Because I keep doing that hope thing? Sneaks right up on me? And it keeps fuckin' me up. And that pisses me off 'cause people keep telling me that it's not supposed to work like that.

But it does. That's how hope fuckin' works.

But at least this way- [He points to his paper with a finger. No, he kind of mashes that finger down onto it, not point at it.] -we can tell someone that their Pokemon didn't fuck off. They were a bunch of people that I hope didn't lay eggs while they were like that, because what the fuck would you even do with your kids.

[Hank takes another drink because he needs that thought to go away. Just wash that one out.]

[He's about to say something along the lines of "You're the boss, Boss!" but then Hank goes off, and Krieg is left...well, not hanging, but this conversation just took a very sharp turn he was not expecting and also honestly never even suspected he had reason to expect.

He listens without interrupting, one hand on his whiskey bottle but not quite sure if he should actually drink. He'd started the call out sprawled on his narrow little hotel bed, cushioned by the pillows and propped up against the headboard. As Hank keeps unloading, Krieg slowly unsprawls, sitting up straighter and straighter until he's hunched over the the device in his hand. His eyes are riveted on the screen with even more than his usual intense focus.

When Hank ends his tirade and takes a drink, Krieg finally takes one too. It's less that he's weirded out by the thought of humans-turned-pokemon producing eggs and suddenly SURPRISE! Pokemon offspring (on the very special scale of Weird Shit his own brain produces on a daily basis, that barely even registers), and more that it feels like...permission.

When he finally does speak, his voice is low and quiet without even a hint of the usual rough edge.]

...Who're you missing, Gramps?

[Hank's getting better at weird concoctions of thoughts. Being in a place of magical monsters that he knows to be fake does that. But seeing people reunited this weekend? Maybe he just hoped... What the fuck is even wrong with him.]

[Hank grunts into his glass before putting it off to the side, a soft 'mm'. Once he's put it down, he shakes that finger in thought. The whiskey, at least, somewhat loosened his thoughts. And his lips.]

I know you call me Gramps, but I never made it there. I uh.. I didn't even get to be a dad until I was fuckin' forty-four. You know, the same age where most guys are sending their kids to high school. [He licks his lips, bites his lower lip, and looks down at one of the papers.]

But he was a good kid. He was smart. Funny. Even after my fuckin' wife fucked off, I had this great kid for family and that's all I needed, you know? I was a dad. And then he was six years old. And there was a truck and an icy road... Well, that was just a few years ago. And every time one of these fuckin' things roll around, I keep hoping I'll get the fucking chance to hug him one last time and tell him what a good kid he is. [Was. What a good kid he was.]

Don't tell Connor. I don't want him to fuckin' deal with it. [He waves off to the side, in the general direction that Connor generally currently is not.] He's probably already sick of dealing with this shit from me. [He takes another drink.] I try not to let him see it anymore.

[Krieg is definitely going to have to take Hank's word for it about parental ages when kids enter high school. One of his besties just got out of high school, and from the way she talks about him, she has an amazing dad, but Krieg has no idea how old Gaige's dad is. Not that that's particularly relevant to the conversation at hand.

He continues to listen quietly as Hank unloads, and...wow. Shit, that's some heavy stuff. He has no idea why Hank chose him, of all people, to share this with. Sure, he's got some great listening skills, but somehow - he grasps at the little flutter of insight and manages to catch it - he doesn't think this is where Hank meant this chat to go. And Krieg doesn't know what it's like to lose a kid. He's never had any, as far as he knows. If he ever had known, it's long forgotten, and better that way.

...He does know what it's like to lose the center of your universe, though. ~~Three times.~~ So maybe it's close enough.]

I bet he's not. He's your friend. Friends help friends.

[He didn't mean to. But at the same time, he did. He just vomited up everything like it was something broiling in his stomach, a wretch of unwanted details and Krieg is at the unfortunate end of it.]

[Maybe it's because it's hard to identify with, too. Fuck if he knows. Hank is all about the questionable choices.]

Nah, I gotta think he is. I was pretty messed up back home and he saw all that. And he was so happy to get me back and now I'm fuckin' miserable again. He hated that I was miserable before.

[Connor had been sad about it, yeah, but drunk brain dictates that it's more upsetting for his partner than he lets on.] Usually, that's why when we find one of these kids or the Pokemon, I can get 'em back to each other. Feels good to see it happen. So I wanted to do this for a while tonight.

[And poor Krieg took some emotional shrapnel.]

[It's fine, honestly. Krieg may not have a clue about what to do with this information now that he has it (except not tell Connor, he guesses), but he doesn't particularly mind having it.]

I feel sad when my friends are sad but I don't hate my friends when they're sad. You should tell your buddy.

[That's what Hank means, here, right? Maybe? Of course Connor feels bad when Hank feels bad, that's just a thing that happens when you're friends with someone. It's natural to want your friends to be happy, because of course they deserve to be happy. It's also natural to empathise with them when they're not, because that's what people do.

Krieg doesn't really get artifice, and he doesn't care who knows what his emotions are at any given time, so the idea of trying to hide how he's feeling from someone is just...really foreign. So he's having a hard time trying to figure out why Hank is trying to hide his sads from Connor, especially because it seems like Connor would be more than happy to be supportive, empathetic sads and all.]

I don't like to see him sad, either.

[And the Hank motions around his head.]

He's got this fuckin' thing where he's supposed to succeed at missions or he's worthless. Comes from being the sorta fuckin' android he is. The company that made him got him all screwed up. And I think he thinks one of his missions is to make me happy.

So I don't like him to see me sad. I don't want him to think he's failing at his mission.

[At least when he talks about Cyberlife, he sounds more mad than sad. The fuckers set him up for a life of difficulty.]

That's why he takes this badge thing so fuckin' seriously, too.

[That...okay, yeah, that does make kind of a weird sense. Krieg's no expert on computer software or programming or whatever, but he's had enough experience with one overly emotional AI on Pandora that he can understand Hank's hesitation here.]

Mnnn...okay. I kinda get it.

[With that said, though, he's...basically scraped the bottom of his extremely shallow advice bucket.

He's quiet for a few moments more, feeling very out of his depth, but then something new occurs to him, and the next thing he says is absolutely unprecedented:]

D'you want me to stop calling you "Gramps"?

[The first ever offer to retire a nickname. Because saying "I'm sorry your kid died" feels like an empty platitude, even if it's true.]

Nah, that's fine. I never took it personally.

I guess I'm just disappointed that I keep trying to get my hopes up. [And he feels like he should, but he shouldn't. And moving on in a place where he might actually have one last chance is fuckin' hard.]

[Moving on is hard enough.]

[Poor goddamn Krieg, putting up with this whiny old piece of shit.] Thanks for drinkin' with me. [He actually does need someone around for that.] And whatever other shit we got here. There are pokemon with pun names anyway and I am only now drunk enough to deal with that. Not even their type names. Like their name names.

...It's hard to stop hoping.

[Oh, boy, he feels you, Hank. He's grateful every day that he's got plenty of attention-holding distractions, but he can't distract himself all the time.

And then, reminded of the booze by his buddy's thanks, Krieg gestures a toast with his whiskey bottle and takes another swig.]

I'll drink with you anytime!

[Also: this boy loves puns. Thank you for reminding him they exist. He leans in close to the 'Gear again, interest grabbed.]

Tell me the pun names!

There's a goddamn Roselia whose owner is named Pearl Elenor Tuniya. Her fuckin' name is P.E. Tuniya.

[Then he hesitates and drunkenly says.]

I want a Roselia.

[Why? Fuck if he knows. But he wants one. His drunken sulky ass wants a fuckin' flower or Budew or whatever.]

Anyway, this fuckin' Roselia went missing somewhere near Goldenrod. Figure if you can't find it, could look for it when I get back. Maybe Connie could find it. The dogs get caught in thorny bushes and it was last seen in a viney, thorny area.

[And the unfortunate witness to all this drunken sadness is pulled out of his pocket, a little Floette that he puts in front of the Pokegear he has propped up, just hugging away at her flower, looking as sweet as pie.]

[It takes him a moment, because he's not super familiar with flowers, but after wracking his brain, a vague memory pops up, and he snorts in amusement. Yeah, that's a good (bad) one!]

Mnnn...Not a lot of vines out here. We're in...Pewter? The stone town with the rock gym. We're gonna leave and check out the moon mountain next. Got anything out here?

[He watches with interest as Hank produces a small flower fairy, and tilts his head curiously at her when she's placed in front of the 'Gear.]

What's that?

Pewter... Pewter pewter pewter...

[He repeats to himself as he's rifling through papers. And then he pauses to look at the Floette. Who he's drunk enough to boop lightly on the head. She squeaks a little "Ette" at that and hides her face in flower petals.]

She's a Floette. She's a fairy type, but I loaded her up with some good water and fire moves. She's level 100. And a very good girl who likes to throw down. Aren't you?

[Drunk Hank cooing at his flower fairy. Never forget, Krieg. As he checks his listings again, she looks to the pokegear and Krieg's big old scary face and just shyly looks over the petals of her flower as if she could do no wrong ever.]

Kanto... Kanto... Uh... Okay, they don't think he's in a lot of danger. But some kid named Linus got the bright idea to use his Trubbish to attract bugs and he's been a couple of days late getting out of Viridian forest. Got any good flying types? Probably good for this kinda thing.

She sounds badass. I wanna see her throw down the next time I see you!

[They can do a friendly battle or something. It'll be great!]

Mmm, yeah, I got the Torch Dragon. And the Slag Stack's buddies with Sparky's Trash Bag, I bet it'll be a good helper to find this missing one, too. We can go look tomorrow.

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sociallychallenged - 2019-06-06 22:08 (UTC) - Expand

Victory Road IC Contact

Video: Late May 27th, when things have cleared up

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I almost typed self-lubricating and that's the wrong thing entirely

lmao, well, it's ALSO a kind of lubricant, if you think about it 8')

It'll help those emotional dialogs slide out hopefully.

lower those inhibitions and loosen that tongue!

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