paixaorpg | Two rodents and a Rosette [COMPLETED]

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Two rodents and a Rosette [COMPLETED]

Characters: Pikachu, Rosette Christopher, and Remy
Content: A certain Electric-type mouse trophy finds himself in Paixao, and the first people he meets are a demon hunter and a rat chef.
Setting: Vanaheim Gate and just inside it.
Time: Afternoon, two days after Chrno's disappearance.
Warnings: None at present.

This was all very, very strange. Really it was. One minute he was curled up next to something all nice and warm in the gunship, and the next... out by a beach, behind a line of humans.

The Pikachu rose to all fours, shook out his fur as if he were wet, then rose to his hindlegs' tippy-toes and had a look around. Very, very strange. Or, at least, it was very, very strange that he was here all of a sudden – the place itself wasn't all that weird compared to some places he'd been. He just didn't remember shifting to trophy form, which would have been the logical explanation for waking up suddenly far from what he last remembered, and besides that he didn't see anyone but the line of humans ahead; no one was close enough to have revived him.

The little Pokémon twitched his ears and cocked his head at the gate the humans were all lined up in front of. It certainly looked appealing enough, with statues of two great trees bearing what would have been delicious-looking fruit, had they been real. Maybe it was a good place to go. Perhaps one of the humans would tell him how he had got here, at least if he could talk to them; he had been promised a translator, but hadn't received it yet. Still, he had got by on pantomime before and could do so again. Dropping to all fours, the Pikachu ambled sleepily over to the humans.

"Hi hi!" he squeaked up at the human in the back of the line. "Where's this? What's the line for?"

The human ignored him, and the Pikachu sighed. Okay, maybe not. Still, maybe if he just waited, he would find out? Lines were nothing new to him - lines were something you stood in to get into the Grand Stadium, after all. So the Pikachu waited.

The line moved quickly enough, and soon the Pikachu found himself staring up at the human in front of the gate, head cocked. The human didn't seem to think it strange to be talking to a Pikachu when he said, "Welcome to Paixao! Name?"

Though he didn't particularly expect to be understood, the Pikachu answered honestly anyway. "I don't have one yet! I lost my Trainer an' I haven't found a Head Doe who'll take me in." He paused, cocking his head the other way. To his great surprise, the human nodded in understanding.

"That's fine," said the human, kneeling to hold a set of brochures and a case holding a small electronic device with a Pikachu-sized collar attached to it out to the little Pokémon. "These will give you information on the city, and this is your journal."

The Pikachu could only stare dumbly as the journal's collar was snapped into place around his neck and the brochures were placed into his small hands. As the human stood again, he found his voice: "Wait-wait! You can speak Pokémon?!"

He got no response, the guard already dealing with the next person in line. A tug at his pant-leg was further ignored, and so, ears drooping, the Pikachu walked through the gates.

His ears sprang up again in utter awe as he reached the city proper.

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Rosette was having a terrible time of things. After the journals had proven to be a rather treacherous dead end, she'd set out on foot, determined to find Chrno. Nevermind that he'd never wander off without her, that he'd definitely have gotten in contact with her by now if he had, that he was more than smart enough to use the map if he got lost...

Nope. She was going to find him.

That had been two days ago. She'd stayed in different hotels whose names she didn't even remember and, after sleepless nights, set out again early in the morning.

And found nothing. It seemed nobody in the city (or parts she'd been to, at least) had even heard of Chrno, let alone seen him. After asking about him and receiving a blank look for what had to be the hundredth time that day, she'd found a bench off to the side of the street and sat down, trying to gather her thoughts. She was pretty sure the Organization didn't have him, because if they did, they wouldn't have played that trick on her on the message board. But if they didn't have him, and he wasn't in the city...had he managed to leave? And if he had, why didn't he take her with him?

Trying to figure out the questions she had only brought up more questions, and answering those only led back to the first batch. She was thinking in circles and couldn't see any way out of it. All she knew was that she couldn't find Chrno, and that worried her more than anything else.

She almost missed the little yellow...um...fuzzy animal in the street. "Hey," she greeted it absentmindedly, not really expecting a response. "You look a little lost."

As wondrous as the city of Paixao was, Remy was having a hard time maintaining a positive outlook about his stay there. He never had found any way to contact his friends from Paris, and by this point he was certain there was no way back. Along the same lines, he had seen little of his other friends in the city lately, which just made things harder. It was a lonely existance, not having anyone around to talk to or interact with.

Not only that, but he had done very little cooking lately, and that made him feel like he’d lost his purpose in life. He needed to find someone who needed a miniature chef, and fast. Otherwise, he was starting to think he might go stir-crazy.

In the meantime, he had been walking around Vanaheim yet again. It had practically become a ritual for him, and he’d at least gotten to greet some new people. It was something to do, at least. Today’s group looked fairly average... or at least, it had up until one of the new entrants caught his eye. Most of the time, the people coming in through the gate were all human... or at least humanoid. The little yellow rodent trotting in today definitely was NOT.

This required further investigation. One of the other humans seemed to have already taken an interest in the newcomer as well, but Remy wasn’t especially worried. He had found that most people in Paixao actually didn’t have a problem with rats and other creatures that were usually considered “pests” where he came from.

Hopping off of the arm of the bench that he had been perched on, Remy scurried over to say hello.

The Pikachu looked over at Rosette's voice, turning and walking up to her bench. Well, one human had understood him here without a translator... so it couldn't hurt to try again, right?

"Yes'm, I am lost. I was asleep with my Trainer on her ship, but I woke up here! And I dunno where here is." He paused for a second, briefly looking at the brochures he was still clutching in both forepaws before looking up again. "Except that I think it's called Paixao, or that's what the man at the entrance said."

Some movement off to the Pikachu's left caught his eye at this point, and he looked at the approaching rat with a curious twitch of his ears.

Rosette blinked and stared down at the little yellow animal. A response was the exact last thing she'd been expecting.

"Um, yeah," she replied absently, words running on autopilot while the rest of her brain tried to figure out just why there was a talking...yellow...animal of some sort. "The man was right, 's called Paixao. There's a bunch of people here who don't know how they got here either, so you're not alone there.

"So, uh..." She'd finally recalibrated her brain to the point where she could ask what she wanted to know. "...what's your name?" Of course, that wouldn't stop her from copping out completely - after all, what are you sounded rude. "And how can you talk?"

Remy wasn't surprised that the girl hadn't noticed him yet. He wasn't exactly bright yellow like the other rat was. (Assuming, of course, that it was a rat... It was vaguely rat-like, at least) However, since his fellow rodent had spotted him, Remy smiled and gave a friendly wave of greeting as he approached.

He was close enough to catch the question that the human asked, and decided to speak up, since he was more likely to have an answer than any newcomer would. "That's just the way it is here," the rat remarked. "Doesn't seem to matter what language you speak before coming here... Everyone can understand each other in Paixao... I have to admit, it came as quite a pleasant surprise..."

The Pikachu lightly closed his eyes in a smile to respond to the wave, and felt quite relieved that the smaller rodent knew what was going on with the normal language barrier. He sure hadn't until the rat spoke up, and he nodded, accepting the explanation. "Normally Pokémon have to have some sorta translator if we're talking to humans, so that is a nice surprise!"

One more strange thing, added on top of there apparently being many people lost in this Paixao place... but that could wait until later. Introductions first!

Looking up at Rosette again, the Pikachu answered her other question: "I don't have a name yet, since I lost my Trainer before she could give me one, and I haven't found a forever herd, either." He closed his eyes in another smile. "If you need something to call me, Pikachu works for now!"

With a curious expression punctuated by a tilt of his head, he then asked, "So what's your name?" And, looking at Remy, "And yours, too!"

Rosette jumped and nearly fell off the bench at the second voice. Searching for its source, she came up with...a rat. Ohhhhhhh boy. Well, either what he was saying (even though she couldn't believe he was saying it) was true, or she'd just gone crazy.

She was betting on crazy, but for now she'd give what the rat was saying a chance.

"Oh," she managed a faint reply to the rat, then turned back to...it - he? - had introduced himself as Pikachu. Kind of. "Right. Um. Nice to meet you." Her voice was still faint - she might've been able to handle one talking rodent, but two at once was just a bit much for her. "I...name's Rosette."

"I'm Remy," the rat introduced himself cheerfully. "Nice to meet you, Pikachu and Rosette."

He was a little amused at the stark contrast between the way the two of them were taking all the information. Poor Rosette seemed almost speechless at the idea of two talking rodents having a conversation with her, while Pikachu seemed almost completely unfazed at being whisked away to somewhere he'd never heard of before where different languages needed no translation.

"If it helps," he added, mostly for Rosette's benefit, "there's stranger things in the city than conversational rats. This whole city's like a fantasy world come to life."

"It's nice-nice to meet you both!" the Pikachu squeaked with a smile.

He looked around, sniffing at the air, at Remy's comment on the nature of the city. The city was certainly pretty different... none of the plants looked real, and the sky was hidden by domes; most of all, the place smelled a bit funny in a currently-unplaceable sense.

Frowning a little, the Pikachu plopped himself down on his haunches, spreading the brochures in front of him with head cocked. Looking up at the other two, he asked, "So how'd we get here? The man at the gate said these'd explain some things," and here he gestured at the brochures, "but I can't read too well."

"I know," Rosette replied to Remy's statement. "I've seen what the city can do." She'd have liked to forget a good portion of that, but there was no helping that now.

She leaned down, taking a look at the brochures Pikachu had spread out on the ground. They looked like the same ones she'd gotten when she'd entered the city - the ones she'd never taken the time to actually read and probably didn't even have anymore. "Well," she started, gesturing to one with pictures of food on the front, "this one looks like it'd have places to eat in it...and this one looks like it has hotels...I don't know," she finally admitted, "I never actually read them.

"As for how we got here...well, nobody really knows. People just show up, and people leave just as suddenly..." She trailed off, not really wanting to think of Chrno and finding it increasingly difficult not to.

"Well, I certainly haven't been able to leave," Remy said, a hint of complaint in his voice. It wasn't that he hated the city, but he wished there was some way to get into contact with his friends. He missed his restaurant and was a little worried it might not be getting along so well without him around. "I could probably sneak outside the gates if I really wanted to, but as far as I know, there's not much out there to see."

The rat glanced down at the brochures that were being examined by the other two and shrugged, "There's not really that much useful information on these you can't get somewhere else. The little journals they hand out have built-in maps that tell you pretty much the same things."

The Pikachu's long ears dropped. That certainly wasn't good; if no one knew how people got here or how to leave... but then Remy spoke of the journal and the Pikachu's ears twitched in curiosity. "Journal?" He opened the carrying case collared to his neck and produced his own, a gold-coloured thing, and set it on the ground in an open position.

It was definitely some kind of electronic thing, with some easy-to-understand symbols, some he had a guess at, and a whole bunch of letters. He spent a few moments prodding at it before an electronic voice spoke, saying, "Voice mode activated." A little more prodding and the journal read out its main options to him - post to journal, post to the message board, draw an image.

Now the Pikachu seemed cheerful again, even excited. "It's a network, huh! I bet if I drew a picture... maybe two..." He went into the imaging program before at last remembering his conversation partners and looking up.

"So, one more question! I was with someone very-very important when I warped - maybe you've seen her? She's a human, really tall! And she has long hair, yellow like mine - and yours, Rosette! Sometimes she wears armour, and it's very orange, and one forepaw is inside a gun." He paused. "And! Her name is Samus Aran."

He looked down at the journal. "If you haven't seen her, I could make a picture and ask lots of people with this thing, couldn't I!" Maybe no one had seen the bounty hunter, but the Pikachu felt he was at least in with a chance.

"Yeah," Rosette replied lightly to Pikachu's inquiry. "You have one-" She stopped as the Pikachu figured it out on his own, far faster than she'd managed it. And Remy knew quite a bit about them...Rosette had just been supremely outclassed by a pair of rodents.

She probably would have hated them for it if they weren't so nice.

Resting her elbows on her knees, she leaned forward to watch Pikachu work with the journal. Yep. Cute.

"Uh- no," Rosette replied, surprised to hear herself included in the description. "I haven't seen anyone who looks like that. I'll keep an eye out for them, though...and yeah, that's a good idea." Well, Pikachu seemed to have settled right in.

"Hey," Rosette fought back awkwardness as she spoke. "As long as we're looking for people, have either of you seen somebody about this tall" - she indicated the correct height with her hand - "long purple hair, wears red, red eyes too, goes by the name of Chrno?" She'd all but given up, but...well, it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Sorry, haven't seen either of them," Remy admitted. He hadn't been looking for the people that Pikachu and Rosette were describing, but he was pretty sure that he would have remembered them if he had seen them. They both sounded pretty distinctive. "It sounds like we're all in the same boat," he added. "I've been looking for my friends too. I've got a slightly awkward red-headed human friend named Linguini that I've been looking for. And also his girlfriend, Colette. She's got straight dark hair, talks in a heavy French accent, and is, uh... kind of intense. And, well... there's also my brother Emile, and my dad... Oh! And Anton Ego!"

The rodent realized he was giving them quite a list and grinned sheepishly. "I guess I'm looking for a lot of people, actually. I don't even really know if any of them even came here. I've been trying to keep an eye out, but no luck so far."

The Pikachu politely looked up from his drawing to listen to Rosette and Remy's descriptions. "Well, I haven't seen any of the people you two are looking for... but then again, I just got here. I'll keep my eyes open and ears up!"

After declaring this with a close-eyed smile, the Pikachu went back to drawing his Trainer. If these two hadn't seen her, perhaps someone out there on the network had.

Rosette's heart sank a little at the negative responses. Evidently she'd been hoping to hear a "yes" a lot more than she originally thought.

"Sorry, Remy," she replied, shaking her head. "I haven't seen any of them.

"You know," she said thoughtfully after a few moments, "it sounds like we're all in the same boat here...maybe we should stick together for a while, see if we can find anybody we know." She had to admit part of her motiviation was a bit selfish - she didn't want to be alone - but being in a group was safer anyways, wasn't it?

"Hm... Sounds fine to me," Remy agreed, "I could use the company. Gets kind of lonely lurking about the streets by yourself."

Not that he couldn't handle being by himself... He'd done it often enough in the past, and to be fair he sometimes wandered off on his own anyway when he wanted some peace and quiet. But that didn't mean he always wanted to be alone. He had already had too much of that since coming to Paixao and losing his family and friends. It would be a nice change to spend an afternoon with some new friends.

The Pikachu nodded to both Remy and Rosette's comments, doodling away. A few moments later, finishing a portion of one sketch to his satisfaction, he looked up with a cheerful declaration: "Teams do better than singles!"

He put the journal back in its carrying case and stood, still apparently as happy as could be. "Well, you two know this place better than me... so let's start looking! I'll finish my pictures when we stop and sleep." The mention of sleep made the little Pokémon pause, then yawn. He had been whisked away in the middle of a nap, after all.

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Two rodents and a Rosette [COMPLETED]

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