World Tree MUSH

It looks like a modern iteration of mundane Earth, if you don't know where to look. Emily isn't actually well-acquainted with Benedicta, who she's only teamed up with a couple of times, or Aurelia, who she's probably seen in person all of once. This just happened to be the Blossom where she had that conversation with the vampire hunter called "D".

In the park where Benedicta had her Easter-incident, she's sitting on a park bench in the form of an auburn-haired woman in her thirties with glowing purple eyes and four arms, dressed in a midnight-blue business suit. At her side is a bag of birdseed, which she's been tossing to the ground ahead of her whenever anything particularly avian gets too close. She's looking uncharacteristically pensive; something is clearly bothering her at the moment.

... Y'know, like she looked right after the Van Patisserie incident.

    Luke didn't hear much of what... happened to Benedicta, he just happens to like roaming on 'mundane' worlds, learning the differences, the little changes, and jsut because sometimes it is relaxing, even if lately he had been wanting to engage on something more... exciting, he had plans, yes... plans... 
    Regardless, he was wandering around said park, simply looking around, oddly, he was alone, at least, it appeared to be the case, even if he did look like he was searching for something... or someone.

Emily is just kicking her feet back and forth. Yyyyyep, she's in ... a very similar funk to the one she was in on Van Patisserie.

It isn't long before she notices a familiar face (despite not looking anywhere near in Luke's direction). She doesn't change her position at all, but a hologram pops up above her head with an exclamation mark and a two-frame animation of a stick-figure waving.

    Something charges near Emily, a small creamy cat with a coin on it's forehead, and carrying a coin in it's mouth, darting under her bench, in the distance, a random snack salesman looks around, noticing some missing change. Luke arrives moments later, finally spotting Emily, and a trail of pilfered change leading her way. "Emily!, hi!"

Emily peers down at the cat. Her hand extends out on a comically large spring, and she attempts to gently pick the cat up and pull it into her lap. She nods over at Luke as he approaches. "Hey, Luke," she says, sounding just as out-of-sorts as she looks, as well as being fairly guarded. "Looking for one of your pokemon?"

    The cat was distracted with pilfered loot, so it gets grabbed, more coins falling from it as it flails, where does it keep all those coins?!. The cat seems to give up quickly, once secured, sitting on the lap and acting as if it was it's goal from the start, letting out a soft noise. 
    Luke tilts his head a bit, picking up the coins and glancing Emily for a moment, finally letting out a sigh, "What's wrong Emily?"

Emily regards Luke for a moment; it takes a moment before she responds. She tickles the cat with one left hand, and runs a finger along its back with the other left hand.

Finally, she looks over at Luke. "So, uh, it's been like over a year or so since the last time I visited your world," she says, "but ... remind me how catching a pokemon works? Like, uh ..." A pause. "... how easy it is to break free from the pokeballs, if they really don't want to be inside them. Like. How it works if the trainer-pokemon relationship isn't working, and the pokemon knows it and wants to do something about it."

Luke Gray smiles a bit as he watches the Meowsie/Konya try to enjoy the attention without looking undignified, and finally failing at it, purring and twitching, coins falling out from it, Emily hit jackpot!. The questions do make him look a bit more serious, those were questions he heard other ask, sometimes before accusing him and other trainers of being slave drivers or something. He raises one hand, "Oh no, I bought too much icecream, now what I am going to do!" he says outloud in a very clearly fake 'concerned' tone of voice. He barely finishes hte sentence, before the pokeballs on his belt begin to wobble, at least a couple of them, and Dynamo, Pangshi, and a large, black cat with golden bands, a 'bell' for a tail, and a weird moon marking on it's forehead all appear, looking around excitedly, then back at Luke. "Sorry guys, I will buy you icecream in a moment." he says, trying to appease the grumbling cats and vampanda. "I can't talk for everyone, I am sure... pokeballs might be built different... but you can see how easy they can leave if they feel the need to." he says with a grin. 
    "As for the other question... if a pokemon doesn't want to be in a pokeball, it won't work, they can dodge being recalled, and just... force themselves out, there are special pokeballs which are harder to break out of, but those are frowned upon by most people except the worst trainers..." there is a moment where he looks aside with a bit of disgust, before returning to the topic, "if a pokemon doesn't like a trainer, they refuse to obey, try to make it clear to their trainer they don't respect them, or feel something is off, and if the situation is not solved, they usually just walk away." he says, "Most trainers respect their pokemon, and their pokemon choose to stay by them due to earning their respect."

Emily chortles. "Awesome," she says. "Just as I thought. Okay, this convoluted metaphor I'm about to make is gonna be on strong ground." She scriffles behind the kitten's ears, and peers down at the rain of coins. "Y'know, people here might frown on it if you buy ice cream using money stolen by your kitten," she adds. "Or ... probably. I think. It's been centuries since ... well, I haven't cared about laws for most of my life, now that I think about it."

She closes her eyes, and considers a moment, gently stroking the cat. "So here's a hypothetical scenario," she says. "Imagine that someone in your world created an artificial pokemon. A pokemon with the intelligence of an adult human." She looks down at the cat again. "It is a pokemon capable of speech. It is a pokemon capable of advanced reasoning -- capable of forming its own hopes and dreams. It could probably get a university degree in theoretical physics, if it put its mind to it. If that was one of the hopes and dreams in question. It might even be better at figuring out the right way to tackle a pokemon battle than you are."

She gestures with her free hands. "But," she says, "this pokemon was created specifically to serve humans. It was 'programed', as it were, specifically to want a trainer." She looks Luke dead in the eye. "Despite having its own hopes and dreams, it is unable to decide that it doesn't want to follow the trainer it is given to. It is unable to decide that its own hopes and dreams are more important than any human's. It is absolutely, completely, compelled by its own nature to obey a trainer, no matter what." There's an intensity in her gaze that isn't usually there. "And they're planning on mass-producing this new species -- and all of them are going to have this feature." She shrugs, half-sarcastically. "It's better than creating a pokemon to serve humans which doesn't want to do so, right?"

She sits back slightly. "So, Luke," she says, "is this slavery?"

    Luke raises his hadn as he hears the hypotetical scenario, "Pokemon are highly intelligent, many are as smart, or smarter than humans, there are some that are far smarter,a dn can comunicate directly to your mind with telepathy, but it's hard for them to comunicate.". 
    The boy goes quiet again as he lets Emily bring up the rest of the scenario. "You realize how.. crazy that sounds?, who would waste that much money and even try to invent things to make a pokemon like that, it sounds like a psychic type, and a strong one, if it is that smart... it'sjust asking for it going angry and snap at you the moment it learns about itself, and likely hurt you... and break everything!" 
    The boy shakes his head, before adding, "I don't even have to think about it, it's wrong, I am sure almost no trainer in my world would accept such a thing happening, if the pokemon had no free will, that's slavery, pokemon are not pets, they are our friends." he mumbles, "If it doesn't have a choice then it's slavery, yes... if I heard of anyone attempting something like that, I'd try to go there and destroy their... labs or something, get the police and other trainers to help."

Emily nods slowly as Luke gives his mini-rant. "Yeah," she says, gently petting the cat. "I ... understand. It is all kinds of creepy and contrived, isn't it?" She shrugs. "In all honesty, Luke, if people like you are the movers and shakers, I can't imagine this actually happening in your world."

She sighs softly, and stares off into space. "... But the point is ..." She pauses for a moment. It's clearly hard for her to get the words out. "... It's the exact situation us Eudaemons would have been in before our world's humans went extinct."

    The kitten wrigles, batting at the petting hand, listening to the conversation with interest, but not fully grasping the real severity of the topics being discussed. The same would be said of the other pokemon, now sitting on the sidelines, Dynamo perking his ears at the last comment. 

    Luke blinks a bit, "Eudaemons... you mean people like you?, you were made to... work for humans?, no choice about it?" he says softly.

Emily nods, gently stroking the kitten. "Precisely," she says. "If I had been activated, like, two months earlier ..." She looks down at the kitten. "... I'd probably have fond memories of being a tool for someone else to use, and I wouldn't even have realized what it meant." She looks back up at Luke. "That girl 'D' was right. We were slaves."

Luke Gray blinks a few times, just looking at Emily, unable to make out a proper response for a while, Dynamo gets up and slowly pads closer, brushing against Emily's side, meowing softly, while the small kitten looks up. "That... that's horrible... but, you are a person..."

Emily actually seems relieved, both by the reaction of Luke's pokemon, and by the reaction of Luke himself. "Yeah," she says softly. "I'm definitely glad you're here to confirm that. To have a second brain looking at the concept." She manages a lopsided smirk. "So ... I'm trying to figure out ... what that means for me. What that means for ... why I'm trying to be a hero, as a substitute for fulfilling my purpose and serving the Masters." She shrugs. "Or why I'm trying to pretend I'm not a hero, I feel like I can confide that much in you."

A smile appears. It's not like her usual amused and faintly smug smile. There's a slightly ... eerie edge to it. "I am glad we had this conversation, though, Luke," she says earnestly. "I'll, uh ..." She looks around at the park around them. "I'll let you know if I have any other epiphanies, all right? I kind of ..." She looks around. "... I've been sticking around this Blossom doing nothing ever since the ball, and you managed to help me out in like the space of one conversation, which probably says something about my coping mechanisms. So, uh." She shrugs. "Yeah. Let's watch out for each other, arright?"

    Dynamo babbles something in it's weird pokemon language, it's a mix of purrs and fractions of 'dynamo' with different entonations, pushing firmly to rub against Emily. "Dynamo was abandoned as a kitten, his kind is... tricky to get strong, to get older, so his trainer tried to abuse and push him too far, then he just ditched him, wounded and I found him and adpted him, he kind of has some ideas over... jerks trying to control others and being in situations out of control." he says, "I don't really know what he'd do if we ran into his original trainer..." he muses. 

    The boy nods, "I'm glad that I was able to help of couse, i am not very... good at phylosophical stuff, but again, if it helps, I consider you a hero and a nice person, helping others would easily be a good purpose, as long as you don't forget to care for yourself." he says softly. There is a chuckle, "If you ever need a chance to just... punch something or just do something physical, or even just need someone to chat or play with, you can always come over and look me up, planning to try to help with a pokemon tournament soon, hoping to invite anyone interested to participate, trainers or not."

Emily frowns at Dynamo. "Wow," she says. "... Honestly, Dynamo, you have it worse than me. My life was pretty cushy, aside from living in ruins my whole life." She smiles at Luke. "As for the tournament? I just might have to show up, give it a whirl! Sounds like it'd be a fun time."

And then her smile fades, and she sighs softly. "... There's another thing, in my past, which is probably relevant to this," she says, "but I ... want to think about it even less than I did before." She grimaces. "If you want to find out on your own, you can head over to the halcyon remnant -- the Gardeners have outposts for exploration and archaeology, and stuff -- and ask around for any Eudaemons who've heard about 'Castor Pollux'." She looks at him. "You might want to mention my serial prefix 'MLE0', though, I haven't been around there very often since I left the first time."

    Dynamo just relaxes a bit and purrs, trying to put Emily at ease, leaning further at her. "Yeah, he kinda... worries about others a lot, especially hearing about stuff like this." he says softly. There is a grin, "I'd like that, I promise we can figure something!" he says. The other two pokemon flock around Luke, glad the situation is a bit lighter, or perhaps asking for icecream!. 

    "Well, you can tell me when you feel comfortable about it, I respect it if you arther not think about it just yet!" he says sfotly, "I appreciate you trusting me enough to share all this."

Emily smiles and nods, stroking Dynamo with one of her free hands. "I'm gonna level with you," she says, "I'm mostly comfortable because of how you 'n' Uni helped me out after Van Patisserie. I have no idea how normal or appropriate it is for a six-hundred-sixty-seven-year-old robot to talk to a twelve-year-old like this in general."

She gathers up the kitten, and smiles. Once again, there's a hint of that ... eerieness to it, but it quickly passes. "So," she says, "how about that ice cream?"

    Luke chuckles a bit, "I'm mature for my age." he tries, petting the musical cat that remained around him. Pangshi is now on his shoulder. "I guess many might call it weird?" he begins, reaching to help Emily back up, "Icecream sounds good!". The pokemon all begin to bounce eagerly, well, except the kitten, being grabbed.