very bad day | Glowfic Constellation

unprophesied_of_ages

"The Pokémon are Giratina, Palkia, and Dialga." He slides over a book at a relevant page. "They're supposed to be able to handle interdimensional travel, so they sound like my best bet. Are you looking for any characteristics other than 'legendary'?"

the_very_best

"Immortal, but they're basically synonymous."

unprophesied_of_ages

"Dialga does time, so that at least sounds more relevant than willpower. The only problem is that none of them are psychic, so they'll be harder to identify if I do manage to sense them."

the_very_best

"Why are psychics easier to identify?"

unprophesied_of_ages

"Pretty much every Pokémon feels completely unfamiliar. Legendaries certainly will, but if I relied on that there'd be false positives.

Joe could hear my nonvocal communication, so I assume psychic 'mon can do that. Even if they don't immediately look different from non-psychic ones, anything that reacts is psychic."

the_very_best

"I don't have any psychic-type 'mon myself so there's no easy way to check - Dusk has enough latent potential to use a psychic attack, but he's dark-type so that probably won't help. We could go ask somebody at the guild to make sure your theory holds."

unprophesied_of_ages

"That would probably be a good idea. The ones we're looking for aren't psychic type, but if it's about potential then they've probably got plenty."

the_very_best

"I don't think psychic 'mon of the sort that will be around the guild house are telepathic," Bella mentions, heading for the library exit. She takes out a different mammalian quadruped, this one with antlers and leaves, to ride back. "Or we'd have used them to translate instead of Joe. They aren't smart enough. But if we're just checking your ability to sense psychic 'mon specially we can compare Lina's Chimecho against any of mine."

unprophesied_of_ages

"Worth a try. I can't sense them now, by the way; whatever the Pokéball does makes it look like it's not here."

the_very_best

"What about Branch?" She pats her tree-mammal.

unprophesied_of_ages

What Rashek's actually sensing is emotions, not psychic ability, but he's still pretending otherwise so as not to contradict the claim that everything he's doing is a normal mode of communication on his world.

"I can tell that there's a mind there, and its general shape and complexity. I'm not sensing anything being broadcasted from Branch any more than I am from you. That's the part that might or might not be different with psychic ones."

the_very_best

Nod, nod. "Branch is not the brightest of 'mon, to be fair."

unprophesied_of_ages

"The psychic ones have to be the ones with more complex minds, usually. That'll make it inconveniently harder to test. Still worth doing, of course."

the_very_best

"Uh, not necessarily. Being psychic type doesn't make a 'mon smarter. The Chimecho we're about to see isn't going to win any contests."

unprophesied_of_ages

"It's not so much intelligence that I can sense as it is complexity. But variance within species could be larger than the difference between different species' averages; I wouldn't know yet."

the_very_best