wing_attack | IC; Pokegear Contact Post

"Uh. It's Tobias. Leave a message."

Sure seems like a good idea. Between the sitting and the... Oh, I'd be too worried about falling.

[She follows, with her Eevee at trailing at her feet.]

It's good, by the way, to meet you in person. Everyone I've talked to is so spread out that it almost feels weird, but...good.

It's not so bad, but I know how to adjust pretty well. I can help you learn a little before you head out, if you want.

[Right... they hadn't had a chance to meet up before this, had they?]

Yeah. I mean... I like that technology is good enough here that you don't have to meet up, but it's still kind of weird to not.

Try incredibly weird... Even with the advanced FaceTime and all that, it's weird not to be able to interact with most people. A few around town I know, but besides that just...

[The shivering Snorunt. The bounding Eevee. The other Pokémon, presumably in their Pokéballs.]

So, it's a nice, uh, change.

What's... uh. FaceTime?

[He's from the 90s, Ashley, take pity on him.]

[She quirks an eyebrow.]

Really? You...don't know? It's the video chat thing. For smart phones.

Smart ph... okay uh. It's 1999 when I'm from, I don't know what year it is for you.

[Stops walking.] What? Nineteen...ninety... Oh.

[Who's the older one here really?]

It was...um.... 2015...

Oh. ... I guess it's not a big deal here... there's people from all sorts of times.

Really? I... I mean, I knew Dave isn't from- but that's was kind of different, so I didn't really think...

[But she's going to be traveling with someone from a different world scheme altogether so is it really that surprising...?]

Huh. Wow, I hadn't even thought about it...not being the same time and year, but...that does make more sense than not.

Jimmy's from a while before me and he sounds like it, it's really funny sometimes.

[He nods at her assessment, though.]

I mean... I've done time travel. Something like this... maybe it should bother me but it doesn't, since it's kind of... not all that important most of the time.

You were saying, tha--

[...]

You've time traveled? On top of...aliens and- you've time traveled too?

[At her feet, Arwen the Eevee paws at the ground; get walking, come on!]

[He nods, and gestures for her to follow, because Arwen looks pretty impatient.]

Yeah. It uh. When you have a big enough explosion, you rip through time and space. I don't know the physics, but it's called a Sario Rip. I guess maybe Sario discovered it? ... Anyway, we went all the way back to when dinosaurs walked the earth. The meteor crashing into Earth was what got us back. ... And wiped out a pretty nice group of aliens.

... I kind of... the others wanted to save them, but what happened in the past had to happen. And otherwise we'd probably never have gotten home.

[So yes. He killed the dinosaurs. Good job, Tobias.]

[She walks, and you'd better appreciate that because it's pretty hard to when someone tells you?? Something like this??]

You... That... Wow, I...I should learn to stop being surprised when you tell me things like this.

Probably. It was kind of weird, though - I thought pretty much everyone had a 'dinosaur phase' but the others didn't seem to know a lot of them? I thought that most people did... maybe I'm just the weird one again.

... At least I have dinosaurs here.

[And it's hard to hide his smile at that, so he doesn't even bother. Dinosaurs, Ashley.]

[Let's swerve into this topic, it's easier for her to wrap her brain around.]

You're...a big dino fan, huh? I never really was...but it's pretty cool that you can actually interact with them, then. How many dinosaur Pokémon are there?

Oh... uh. Lemme think. Aerodactyl, Cranidos, Shieldon, Tyrunt, and Amaura are all dinosaurs or... well I guess technically Aerodactyl might not count but pterodactyls are close enough. Archen's also a sort of ancient bird thing. Omanyte, Kabuto, Lileep, Anorith, and Tirtouga are also more... ancient-ish Pokemon that look like they're based on some stuff from our world, and Relicanth is considered a 'living fossil' I think. Then there's all the Pokemon that could be either dinosaurs or dragons, depending on how you look at them.

I've got a Tyrantrum and an Aurorus - the evolved forms of Tyrunt and Amaura. They're named Wrecks and Amy. Wrecks... uh. Lives up to his name.

[As he talks, her eyes widen slightly, but she stays completely quiet...and kind of wishes she could take notes.]

Wooow. You really are into them. Dinosaurs and birds, your expert points. Have you wanted to get the rest of them? Why only two?

I've got an Aerodactyl, I just haven't trained him in a while. I feel kind of bad, but I've been trying to rotate through my roster in the order I got them. He's in the next set... I kind of got a ton of eggs and trades all at once a while back so I didn't get a chance to train them all properly. And I could probably handle more at once if I swapped out my main team, but I always keep Regal and Rachel on my team at least.

Ones you never switch out... I understand that...and not wanting to give a lot of attention to more than one at a time. Yikes, it was a mistake getting so many eggs at the same time.

Yeah. I've... definitely slowed down, but I also ended up with a bunch of Pokemon that were from friends who left. I don't mind keeping them around, but it's a little weird to try to get them to listen sometimes.

From people who... Oh. [She frowns.] I hadn't even thought about what would happen to them. Of course they weren't stay with whoever caught hem, but... Yeah, I can't imagine that being anything other than kind of awkward.

Yeah... I think I've finally got Gamzee's old Pokemon listening to me. Most of Mimi's aren't really eager fighters, so I let them just kind of mess around. I don't think you should make them fight if they don't want it...

[He glances down at Arwen.]

I've got an Eevee, too. Erek. I... named him before I realized how awkward it was to name Pokemon after people you knew at home. But he doesn't fight which I guess is... fitting? Erek never wanted to fight at home, either. It was against his programming.

[And when they turned that off... yeah. No. Better for Erek to not fight.]

You mean he was a--

[Hold on. Oh no. Sorry in every conceivable way, Tobias, but there is something that has to be addressed.]

I. I-I'm sorry, did you- d-did you say Gamzee?

[THE THINGS YOU LEARN ASSOCIATING WITH HOMESTUCKS.]

A - huh? Yeah. He and Mimi and I traveled together. He was pretty nice... hee was kind of stoned most of the time, but he seemed to mean well. Why?

[Social cues, what are those?]

Because Karkat, he did so many horrible things t--

[...So she'd said she wouldn't meddle. What does this qualify as? Meddling.]

It- it's complicated, and I don't even know the- the whole story, it... Look, just promise me you won't talk to him around Karkat. You- you know Karkat, right? Or know of him? Shouty, always types in all caps and uses a lot of swears?