Ch 43: There’s something happening here, What it is ain’t exactly clear
There was an elevator at the back of the stone hall, so luckily they didn’t have to go looking for one to help Hailey get up to the second level.
Rather than the earth itself, it seemed the other floor was dedicated to things pulled out of the earth.
Fossils had always been something of a mystery. There were fossils of plants, of small animals, of creatures that bore some loose similarity to modern Pokémon but clearly weren’t.
The Pokémon fossils were the really strange ones though, and Hailey actually knew a few of them by name, from watching an old documentary. Omamyte and Kabuto, Anorith and Sheildon. They still walked the world today but also they could be… revived? Recreated? Cloned? Hailey didn’t pretend to understand the science.
Still, they were weird, but maybe she could get some answers.
“Hey, Pompom.” Hailey found herself almost unconsciously using Gem’s nicknames. “When we saw you… deal, with Sharp, she just… vanished. No body, no bones, so what’s up with these fossils?”
Hmm, well, there is only so much I can tell you” Hailey honestly thought she was about to leave it at that, which honestly might have made her try to throttle the ghost. Or at least shake her a little. Thankfully, the ghost kept going after a pause.
“But do you remember what I said beforehand? While my sisters and I tend to most of our kin, some choose other paths. Some water types migrate to the deepest ocean trenches. Some Ground types and Rock types, meanwhile, travel into deep, hidden caves, where not even we can find them. What they do there, I cannot say. I know some gossip that such behaviours represent an ‘early attempt’ by Arceus, but I do not think such speculation is helpful.”
“She’s grumpy because she doesn’t know.” Gem whispered, exactly loud enough to let Pomona hear her. The ghost didn’t even dignify it with a response, instead turning to look at a display of Dome fossils. So it was purely coincidence that one of her dangling cords swung out far enough to slap Gem on the ass.
Heading further back into the museum the fossils continued, but they eventually hit a delineation point.
The Hall of Humanity.
“So, you think there’s any actual history in here, or is it just a thinly veiled peepshow for the Mon?” Brigit said dryly.
“Why, are you offering?” Thẚo moved to give a little love tap, but Brigit was clearly quite experienced at avoiding them when they were in public.
“Not out here, you knew when you bonded me that I wasn’t the Trainer type. I was just wondering if this exhibit was made by a Human or a Mon with more dick than brains. I’ve seen both before.”
As they entered the hall, it was honestly hard to tell what timbre the exhibits took, because it was a mess.
Paper was strewn everywhere, mostly torn up brochures, but also toilet paper for some reason. The place also stank of fumes, spray paint. Mostly black but also neon green, it was seemingly sprayed in random lines, across cabinets, the floor, and more, but there were some identifiable markings. The letters N and O were quite common, as were a series of lines and dots that, if you squinted, might be a circuit board pattern. It was hard to tell, the graffiti was fairly amateurish and drippy.
The culprits weren’t hard to spot, all grouped up at the end of the hall. Bunch of girls in matching leather jackets, pants, distinguishable from the back only by their hair colours, the same green board pattern on their clothing.
Several of them were busy spraying their crude graffiti on a long glass display case, while one stood back, idly tapping a metal baseball bat on the tile.
“Oh what the shit is this?” Gem’s voice echoed through the gallery.
For a moment, everything froze, the girls stuck mid movement until their apparent leader hopped down off her seat and turned to face them.
She was young, all of them were, and her sandy blond hair clashed against the neon green visor she was wearing. She stood there, tapping her bat against the ground, as her friends rushed up behind her. Were they… posing?
“What kind of assholes deface a museum?” Dumb question because the assholes in question were right in front of Hailey, wearing leather jackets, but it still felt appropriate to say. “There an alarm or something around here?”
“Ha!” The apparent leader of the group laughed, while her cronies snickered behind her. “What kinda noobs you think you’re dealing with? This dumps security is as shoddy as their history! We already disabled all the alarms!”
“Even the fire alarms? That seems dangerous.” Pomona said, blithely as ever.
“You realize there’s still, like, employees here, in other rooms, right?” Hailey cut in. “We can just… yell for them, or call a Ranger on the Dex. There’s a lot of people around.” Even as she said that Pomona turned to float away, directly through a wall.
The whole group froze, their smirks and grins slowly fading away.
“Fuck.” Was the summation from their leader. “Cheese it before the fuzz shows up!” The gang immediately broke into a confused scramble, running left, right, back, with seemingly no coordination whatsoever.
“Ah jeez, hey Thẚo can you try to grab some of them so they don’t get away?” Brigit seemed more annoyed than anything, like she’d stepped in something.
“No problem Bribri!” The Tropius was large, she shook the floor with every step (if that wasn’t an alarm on its own then nothing was), but damn she could be fast when she wanted to be.
A pair that had scrambled to a door on the right, only to find out to late that it was a locked maintenance door. With the spectre of thudding green and brown defeat closing in, panic had clearly taken them. The chase started turning roundabouts around several of the freestanding cases, desperately trying to keep Thẚo at bay.
Honestly, it was pretty comical.
“Do you think you could, I dunno, shock em? Maybe you could even catch one of the ones that ducked into another gallery?” Hailey whispered to Gem, unable to take her eyes off the spectacle.
“Yeah? But prooooobably shouldn’t chance it, might ruffle the Rangers feathers, or set something on fire.” Hailey let it drop, it wasn’t like catching vandals was their job or anything.
In fairly short order, Thẚo had literally cornered her two targets. One had fully crouched down, hands over her head, shaking, while her friend tried to stand tall, body blocking as Thẚo advanced. It wasn’t very intimidating.
“S-stay back you overgrown breeder!” Hailey could literally hear the waver in the blue haired girls voice from across the hall.
“Oh ho ho, flirting is appreciated but it won’t save you!” Thẚo was having way to much fun, and excuse to grab not just one, but two girls out in public? At least until standing one fumbled something out of her bag. It looked like it was made of white plastic, with a trigger but also what looked like a can of hairspray jammed in the bottom.
Everyone realized what it was about to happen the instant before it did. A click like from a cheap lighter rang out and a gout of fire burst at the end of the device. Hailey couldn’t help but wince as Gem did the same, but Brigit just rubbed her eyes with one hand.
Thẚo paused for a second, looking down. The girl was white knuckling the trigger, but it was already starting to sputter. The Tropius languidly flicked it away with a single finger.
“Is that supposed to be a Crème Brûlée torch? Seems kinda wimpy. Anyway, be good girls and come along now. If you cooparate I might even treat you to some fresh fruit!”
They weren’t exactly quiet, but they did come along. Not much else they could do, held one under each thick arm.
It didn’t take very long for people to begin filtering in.
Museum employees shaking their heads at the mess they had to clean up, visitors making various disapproving noises over the two caught girls… or cooing over how strong Thẚo was.
For her part, Hailey was more interested in the large case at the back, what about it had drawn so much ire?
The long case had what looked like samples of bone and artifacts under an additional layer of glass, at least the hadn’t actually damaged anything irreplaceable. Some bones that looked human, scraps of wood and stone that were probably once tools, fabric that could have been anything from clothing to a sack, it all looked fairly inoffensive. The poster boards on the back had more information.
“Effects of the Bonding Process on Humanity over time.” Pomona read out. “Seems to be fairly standard archaeological matters.”
“Yeah, morphological studies is the official name of the field” Hailey said, “Actually something I know a little about without TV for once. Studies on how humans physically change, and have changed, in response to Bonding, both in the short term, and over generations. For a while some of the human doctors thought they could maybe improve my condition through a bond, but gave up because they couldn’t think of a way to get one to start, let alone stick.”
Gem cackled at that. “So I’m better than a doctor? I should get business cards! Gem the Minun, Sexual Healer! Just wait till I start plumping you up!”
“Fat chance pipsqueek.” Hailey just ruffled her hair. “I still say nothings gonna happen. Besides, not like I can use a fat pair of thighs, and I’m not gonna get anything up top from you, except maybe get even flatter!” It was really fun to make Gem harumph, as Hailey was learning.
“Load of crap!” The yell came from behind and echoed through the hall, Hailey heard several gasps follow it.
It was the blue haired girl again, still flailing ineffectively in Thẚo’s grip while her friend just hung limp and depressed. “Breeder propaganda!” She was almost spitting. “It’s fake history! Humans are the same as we’ve ever been, the only thing that’s changed is our technology! That’s why the Natural Order is for-AghhhH!” The rant was suddenly cut off by Thẚo doing a little hop, which sent her captives flopping up and down, and quite a lot of the Tropius jiggling at the same time.
“Huh, according to this other plaque, there’s evidence of humans existing before signs of any Mon, wonder how they managed that? You lot used to make babies by scissoring with each other? Cause if so, I wanna watch.” Gem was bending over far more than necessary to read.
Hailey just shrugged.
Eventually, an Arcanine in a Ranger uniform showed up. A frankly huge dog to be packed into their uniform, but it was hard to tell how much was muscle, and how much just fluff.
Thẚo didn’t even need to put them down to hand them over. The blue haired girl was still thrashing around, but her rants had become something more like inarticulate yelling after she’d gotten a finger stuck in her mouth, while her friend had stayed meekly limp.
“Well, that kinda put a damper on the afternoon.” Brigit said. “They all looked pretty young, about the age teens are first going out to ‘wade in the tall grass’, as my mom used to say. Wonder what’s going on with them?”
“Don’t ask me, even if I was their age I wouldn’t know what the ‘youth’ was up to.” Hailey felt the need to make air quotes at that.
“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that you’re older than me.”
“Probably cause I’m about a worldly as a Diglett. But I dunno, seems like a bunch of kids just go crazy every few years. Remember seeing a bunch of jokers run around in Alola in skull masks way back. Though the news seemed to be more about freaking out parents than anything else.”
“I only stepped outside long enough to get grabbed by a big, dumb Tropius so I can’t comment either.”
There really wasn’t much to say after that, it would be a while before the hall was cleaned up.
Instead, they hit gift shop on the way out. Hailey was quite proud of the groan that a ‘I Got My Body ROCKED at the Oreburgh Mining Museum’ t-shirt got out of Gem.