6 ∅ [Video]

[callbacks]

[There's a bright little bird...lizard thing minding its own business on a branch, cleaning its feathers and looking around with puzzled curiosity. The owner of the PokéGear sets it standing in the fork of the tree and then starts to creep up the branch with hands and knees, trying to keep his breath quiet. He's a kid, small, small enough for the branch to hold his weight, but it dips and the Archen notices him. As one, they freeze, and then both leap at once, the Archen away and the boy towards it, in a crush of squawking and leaves and confusion.

The PokéGear falls, too, thudding to the grass amid the cries of Pokémon, and it's hard to tell what's happened for a minute until a Gallade comes to pick it up. He's balancing a four-year-old blond boy on his hip while a Togetic hovers in dismay, everyone dusty from the fall, but the kid squirms in the Gallade's hold and beams without smiling from behind his very familiar shades. Proud and apparently unhurt, Dave holds up a PokéBall towards the 'Gear.]

I caughted it.

[Wart the Gallade turns the camera to his own desperate, exasperated, bewildered face.]

Help me.

((Kiddo Dave replies will come from knightoftimeout!))

Comments

video

[dosomethingslacker]

Oh holy shit.

[WHAT IS HAPPENING, FIRST CHURCH NOW THIS. This is the start of a bad week.]

Dave, hey where are you at.

[Wart, help him out.]

video

[knightoftimeout]

[Does he recognize Tucker? It's hard to tell. The kid emotes even less now, somehow.]

Outside.

[With a stressed mental sigh almost like static, Wart sends Tucker a brief impression: top of Route 34, very close still to Goldenrod.]

[dosomethingslacker]

Christ.

[THANKS WART YOU'RE A PAL. The background of his video goes by as Tucker starts making his way through the city to get there.]

How'd you get up there anyway?

[knightoftimeout]

Climbed. I'm good at climbing.

[As if to prove it, he tries to pull himself up higher on Wart's shoulders, but the Gallade just bounces him a little and resettles him on his hip. Poor thing's doing his best, but this is way beyond him, and his psychic voice is pretty strained.]

Please hurry. He's not supposed to be this small.

[video]

[quadrangle]

[The pixellation had been one thing. He'd been sort of okay with the pixellation because how the fuck else is someone from a video game supposed to react (spoilers: he'd lost his shit anyway), but seeing Dave of all people transformed into a human wiggler and throwing himself out of trees is so far from being okay that the resulting apoplexy actually manages to render him speechless.

It doesn't last long.]

DAVE, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU AND HOW DID YOU GET THERE?

[And how did he not notice? How the fuck did someone LITERALLY LIVING WITH THIS ASSHOLE not notice him losing half his height and three quarters of his vocabulary? Or more? Or oh fuck what if Dave doesn't even remember him, had he fully reverted? Fuck fuck fuck fuck f u c k, what kind of moirail just lets this happen, like his other failures weren't enough—

If either Dave or Wart are even paying attention at this point, they're definitely going to notice Karkat's surroundings streaking past while the troll all but sprints to the nearest physical location that even passingly resembles where Dave had been transmitting from. Outdoors, tree, Torchic and Gallade nearby, where the fuck is he?]

[dosomethingslacker]

Yea, no kidding, Wart. Almost there.

[Fuck the last kid he was really around was Junior and somehow he gets the idea the stuff they did for Junior won't work on Dave? For one thing Dave's half the size Junior was when the alien was just born.

Fuck it he'll figure it out. He's almost there now anyway.]

Hey, Dave, chill for a second all right?

[video]

[knightoftimeout]

[Both Wart and Dave cringe away from the PokéGear for a second. Thanks, Karkat, it's not like they need their hearing or anything. Dave rubs his ear with a grumpy huff.]

Uh, I walked? Duh, Katkat.

[Wart shares the mental equivalent of a sigh on the cusp of exasperation and very real freaking out with Karkat and sends him a handful of place-impressions leading to Dave's tree. Along with it comes the explanation: Dave woke up early, found nothing he wanted to eat in his food stash, and toddled out in search of greener pastures and tastier comestibles before getting distracted by the Archen.]

[knightoftimeout]

'M always chill. The chillessest.

[He mumbles it, though, and turns away to start playing with the Pokéball in his hands, rubbing his fingers over the shiny surface, because he knows 'chill' to be code for 'fuck off for a second, Dave, I'm busy.' Which he's apparently okay with honoring. Wart's the one closer to panic, here.]

What do I do? I didn't know humans even came this small, they're not supposed to get starters until they're much older. Ten? I don't even know how old he is now, is he a baby? Is this what human babies look like? Are human babies supposed to be jumping out of trees?

-> action

[dosomethingslacker]

Wart, slow down, all right, it'll be fine. Ask him how old he is.

Coming up on you now, I can probably take it from there.

[Because it's hard to miss a giant ass Gallade there with a kid on its hip even looming in the distance. Why does this kind of shit always happen to him?

He gets up to them, barely broken a sweat because thanks Wash and looks them over. Jeez Dave is tiny.]

Hey.

[knightoftimeout]

[Dave glances up from whatever question Wart was asking him and looks Tucker up and down. Whatever he sees, Tucker must pass muster, because he nods, satisfied.]

'Sup.

[He looks at Wart one more time, but then addresses his answer to Tucker.]

I'm four. But 'm not really four.

[dosomethingslacker]

Yeah?

So.... Physically four but not. You know who I am?

[Lord give him this much.]

[knightoftimeout]

[A pause, then a nod.]

You're Tucker. I'm not a baby.

[That last bit's to Wart. Dave starts playing with the Pokéball again, muttering and offended.]

I remmber shit.

[dosomethingslacker]

[There is so much relief just in the way his shoulders slouch.]

Oh thank fuck. Okay, that handles a lot of problems straight off, awesome.

...... What now?

[knightoftimeout]

Hmmm. [Dave thinks about this, then orders Wart imperiously:] Put me down.

[Wart's more than happy to do so, though both he and Valentine continue to hover like Dave could explode at any moment. Dave just brushes himself off with one hand and bounces a couple times to make sure his legs aren't broken. He's a little scuffed up, but he doesn't seem to notice the minor scrapes.

Instead, he holds up the Pokéball.]

I caughted a funny bird. Wanna see.

[harlequinhater]

[At first, John doesn't really think much of the fact that there's some kid trying to catch a dino-bird. But then it strikes him that this kid looks awfully familiar... And his suspicions are confirmed when Dave's Gallade suddenly comes onto the screen.]

Oh shit, is that Dave? Where are you? And Wart, you can't just let kids climb trees like that! Their brains are still soft and malleable and stuff! He could get hurt!

Also, what happened?

[Since last thing John remembers, Dave was a normal teenager that was a normal teenager size. He definitely would have remembered him shrinking.]

[knightoftimeout]

He didn't ask me if he could climb the tree, John! And he seemed to know what he was doing? I AM NOT A CERTIFIED CHILDCARE ASSISTANT POKÉMON, JOHN. HELP. ME.

[Oh god, Wart's finally cracking under the pressure. He was not trained for this, this is not in Being a Starter Pokémon for Goomies.

Dave, on the other hand, seems completely unfazed.]

Your brains is soft and malleable, buttnerd. I caughted a Pokémon. [He presses the ball protectively to his little chest.] A cool Pokémon. The coolest.

[harlequinhater]

Okay, that's nice, Dave. I am glad that you managed to catch a Pokemon despite being in a frail child body.

Now where are you? Because you clearly need some adult supervision!

[If nothing else, somebody needs to come and take care of him before he gives his dear Pokemon an aneurysm.]

[knightoftimeout]

...You're not a adult. You're just John.

[harlequinhater]

I'm almost an adult! And you know what, I think some countries count seventeen as being an adult.

Anyways, I'm older than you are, and I don't have a mushy kid brain. That's the important thing here!

[video -> action maybe??]

[quadrangle]

[Between Merope and "Katkat," it's a wonder either of them even notice anymore. Also, what the fuck, stop calling him "Katkat." He's too worried to actually snap this, but consider it implied as he alters course to match Wart's silent directions and gives Dave a dirty look on principle. Still sprinting, by the way, even if that makes turning his full lung capacity to the task of shouting at his moirail inordinately difficult. ]

Why... didn't you... wake me... up?!

[His voice is low and furious, which naturally does fuckall at concealing his worry. Had Dave just not realized he should say something before taking off? That has to be it, right? And, fuck, he will bribe this piece of shit with every Happiny Meal toy in existence if it keeps him from wandering away again, why hadn't he trusted him?

Expect Karkat to come skidding into view at whatever point in time is reasonable for however the fuck far away Dave is, by the way. He may also stop a moment to catch his breath because, yeah, he has learned absolutely nothing about the consequences of running full tilt somewhere just to yell at people.]

[knightoftimeout]

[Wart's already beaming directions into John's brain, but Dave digs his metaphorical little heels in.]

You're not seventeen. I'm sev...seventeen.

[harlequinhater]

[John isn't too far away, thankfully, so he starts his trek to Dave's location. Not that walking is going to stop him from arguing with a four-year-old in the meantime.]

There is no way you are seventeen! You look like you're a two year old or something.

[video -> action totally]

[knightoftimeout]

[Dave starts to answer the question, but then seems to notice he doesn't have an answer. Slowly, as the realization trickles in that he has Done a Bad, his gaze slips away from the camera, aside and down, until he just sticks his fingers in his mouth and stares at the ground and says nothing until Karkat's arrival.

Even then, he still doesn't speak for a moment, just clinging to Wart like a baby possum even when he makes to put Dave down. When he finally pipes up, it's tiny and quiet and spoken mostly towards Wart's shoulder.]

Sorry.

[Wart looks from Dave to Karkat and back with painful sympathy. Oh no, he's so small. Dave does squirm to be let down, then, and when he does he shuffles towards Karkat and then holds up his ball.]

Do...do you want my bird?

[knightoftimeout]

I'm four!

[Wait. Shit.]

I'm four but I remmber...I, I had a birthday. Carolina gave me a toy for my birthday, and I wasn't four.

[harlequinhater]

Yeah, so you used to be seventeen, but now you're a baby four year old who can't reach high shelves anymore.

[Is John going to lord his new position of being older over Dave? Yeah, definitely.

Still, more gloating can wait. He's just able to see the tree that Dave had fallen out of a few minutes ago, and he quickly jogs over to make sure that Dave can't get too far away. Sure enough, he soon sees a familiar, if much smaller, mop of blonde hair.]

There you are!