[RP] Spiritwater – Tides of Witchcraft

[Neo Emolga]

Triad (The Diamond Ladies)
Tide Song Hotel, Akala
Affected RPers: @Desolate Divine @Shruikan @Chakramaster @Noblejanobii

After it had been a while since Victini had quietly walked into the bathroom to console Abbee, the two of them had emerged, with Victini perched on Abbee’s shoulder. While Cassandra didn’t fully know what kind of conversation the two of them had, she had a pretty good idea, even without the details.

As Cassandra thought about it, she felt what had just happened was a simple misunderstanding. It wasn’t Victini’s fault for getting carried away with this reunion. It had been four years after all. But in the end, the way Cassandra saw it, Abbee was Victini’s trainer now. It wasn’t fair to her to keep plucking Victini away like this, old friend or not. And at the same time, Cassandra hadn’t realized the emotional and personal bond that Abbee now had with Vicitni was particularly strong. Stronger than she originally thought.

She knew she had to let go.

For real this time. Even if it meant turning down Vicitni’s offers to help or chat, because as she had seen, even just chatting with Victini one on one was enough to affect to affect Abbee emotionally. In the end, Cassandra knew it was her decision to live as an Eevee in Starglade that resulted in this, and she understood the cost of doing that was abandoning everything she had in that previous life. The little money she had left, her last few personal belongings, and most of all, her own Pokémon, and that included Victini as well. On top of all that, she had a new team of Pokémon now. While she appreciated all the guidance and help that Victini had given in the past, she knew she needed to count on Gale, Angel, Nami, Berri, Marche, and Ace instead. All six of them had come from difficult and troubling backgrounds with previous trainers, and they needed her care and attention, also.

“Vic-ti…” (“Hey, Cass, I just wanted to say something…”) Victini told her as he looked to her from Abbee’s shoulder.

“I know you want to try to make this a cooperative thing,” Cassandra replied, knowing it was in Victini’s nature to try and make everyone happy. “But it can’t be. We had a good run, but you’re Abbee’s Pokémon, now. She cares about you and she needs you. We’ll always be friends, but we can’t be partners. Not like we used to.”

Victini sighed, looking a little downcast.

“Vic-tini…” (“I really don’t like choosing like this…”) he replied, frowning a bit.

“I want you to fully be Abbee’s partner from now on,” Cassandra told him, laying it down in a firm and solid tone to show she meant it. “It doesn’t mean we need to start acting like we don’t exist to each other anymore or go to extremes to avoid each other because that’s not necessary, but you belong to her and she belongs to you. A bond that strong… you can’t let anything or anyone come between that. Not even me.”

Victini was silent, looking down and unable to look into Cassandra’s eyes. Thoughts were swimming around and around in his head, but he understood what Cassandra was saying.

“Vic-ti…” (“Okay…”) Victini replied, softly nodding after thinking everything over. “Vic-tinini…” (“I’m Abbee’s Pokémon, the fat lady has sung.”)

“Thanks,” Cassandra smiled to him. “I know I don’t even need to tell you to be good to her. You already have been.”

Cassandra could see he was starting to get a bit teary-eyed, but she knew this had to be the way of things.

Shortly after, Abital had gently tapped Cassandra on the shoulder to her attention, gesturing toward Avery. While Cassandra didn’t quite understand the sign language, the motions and the gestures were enough to give her the insight to understand it meant Avery was ready.

“Thanks, we’ll take it from here,” Cassandra told him as Jarena and Violet had gathered around Avery.

For this spell, it was slightly different, as the reagents had already been spent to start the spell, it was just never completed, like a cake batter that just needed more mixing. Still, there was something on Jarena’s mind that she couldn’t quite understand about this whole situation.

Luneth had lightly pawed at Cassandra’s leg, and she had looked down to see the Alolan Vulpix wanting to get her attention.

“Vul? Vulpix vul vul?” (“Is there anything I can do to help with Avery? I’ve done Pokémon transformations before, though not like this one.”)

“Yeah, I’ll admit I haven’t done this one before either…” Cassandra replied as she flipped through one of her Shadowcraft tomes. “We usually used the transformation hex method, laying the hexes on objects after using hairs and fur strands acquired from pretty common Pokémon. This one’s… different.”

“So… riddle me this,” Jarena asked Cassandra and Violet as Violet got a spare beach towel ready. “Why turn Avery into a Keldeo? Isn’t that like… a really super rare Pokémon?”

“Don’t overthink it,” Violet replied, simply preparing to get the transformation reversed. “I saw someone got turned into a hunk of diamond out there on the street. They don’t care.”

“Yeah, but… how did they get a sample of Keldeo, and why use it?” Jarena asked curiously. “I mean, with all the other common options you have for Pokémon to turn people into, why use one like that instead of say, a Ratatta or Pidgey?”

Violet wasn’t sure, but right now, her concern was trying to figure out exactly which spell the original caster had started. Unlike Jarena’s flowery transformation that persisted on its own until it was completed, Violet’s original assessment was that this half-Keldeo transformation was completely stopped. If it wasn’t continued, Avery would be in this centaur state permanently.

Meanwhile, Cassandra realized this, also, but she hated bringing up bad news like this after she had originally said it would be promising they could resolve this tonight.

“I… was wrong, I don’t think we can continue from where the original caster started,” Cassandra told the others. “For one thing, I don’t know what exact spell they used, where they left off, and if the reagents they were using had already been consumed, or if they were only spent midway.”

“Couldn’t we just Nox Purge her?”” Jarena asked.

“Seriously?” Violet sighed, looking tired. “Cass and I nearly killed ourselves trying to do that for you. We haven’t even had a fifteen-minute break since the last one.”

“Yeah, but we got Luneth here, now,” Jarena told her. “I mean, if she pitches in and the strain is distributed among the four of us, that shouldn’t be so bad.”

Cassandra nodded and felt that was a good idea, but she still felt very spent from having to undo Jarena’s curse and that not even a four-way distribution would be enough to make it bearable for them, at least not right now. She then looked at her phone, seeing the time was about 6pm. After thinking about it a bit, she then looked to Avery.

“This is going to be a little tough…” Cassandra told Avery and Abital. “I thought we could continue the transformation and then simply undo it with an Affliction Reversal spell like what we did on the Wishmaker, but it’s not that easy. We don’t know what spell they used and we don’t have anything like that in the tomes that we have, so the only option we’ve got is Nox Purge, which is very effective and would resolve this, but it’s very demanding. We can do it for Avery, but we already had to do it for Jarena just a few minutes ago, so we badly need some recovery time or it’ll choke us in the middle of casting. Come tomorrow morning, with Luneth’s help, we should be able to do it for you without a problem. Ideally, a good night’s rest for all of us would probably be the best way to handle this.”

“We’re going to need time to teach Luneth how to do this if she doesn’t know already,” Violet added to that. “Besides, it would be damn good if she knows. The three of us can’t handle all these victims.”

Cassandra knew it meant Avery would need to spend the night as this centaur form they now had, but Cassandra saw it as the only option. Otherwise it meant a suicide mission trying to take whatever books Agatha’s witches had and hope the spell they were looking for was in a tome they had but the Ladies did not. The risk was far too great.

“Let’s just grab some dinner, if there’s… anyone still cooking stuff, that is,” Jarena asked, not sure if any of the restaurants or food vendors were still working due to the current crisis. “I mean, I’m cool with just fruits and veggies from the market stand, but I know most folks here probably aren’t keen on a… well, Buneary diet.”

“Might be best for now,” Cassandra replied, nodding. “I think we all need a refresher after what happened today…”