dissonates | [Voice]

[Silence.

There's too much of it. It burns into his mind, the echo of emptiness in the corner of it, that ache he can't seem to brush aside no matter how he tries to distract himself. He's tried going outside, he's tried burying himself in that braille stuff Xion gave him, he's tried striking up conversations with his housemates (even the animals), but he runs out of things to say far too quickly and in the back of his mind it's always there. The silence, the echo. The fact that something is missing.

Dead.

And then he's had enough.

The journal's camera is partially obscured when the feed flickers on, and what it does show is his face - eyes, a flash of red hair, his bangs down - just enough to make it seem like he's not quite himself. His voice, too, is softened; it's not as open and friendly as Luke would have been when greeting the village, but it lacks the usual anger or pent-up frustrations of the socially-awkward soldier. If anything it sounds... hushed, weary, tinged with a bit of desperation. He needs this. Whether or not he wants to do it is irrelevant.

It hurts. The silence hurts, more than last time when Luke had been sent home, and he honestly hadn't thought it would.]

Tell me about your day. Tell me a story. Talk about anything. Today I'm listening.

[He might not care. He might not be nice about it. He might not even remember it later. But he'll listen.

He just needs to hear something, so he can forget about the nothing in his head for a while.]

((Asch is blind, so all tags must be voice/action or he cannot respond to them!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[This sounds like something that's going to put him to sleep...]

That's not very many species.

[YOU ASKED FOR THIS, ASCH]

Oh, no, there are actually over six hundred species. Think of types as... well... an affinity of some sort?

[What was he thinkiiiing]

...Like elemental affinities?

[Just a guess going by experience.]

That would be the best way to put it, yes. So, you have Fire, Water, Grass, Ground... and so on.

Sounds like the monsters in my world, then.

[Now it makes a little more sense.]

Is that so? I guess that sort of thing is a little more common than I expected, even if Pokemon aren't exactly universal.

Anyway, back to the original topic-I specialize in Ground-type Pokemon, whose attacks are... well, they're fairly self-explanatory.

Ground attacks, I get it. Why would you want to specialize in only that one type, though? Ground-based techniques aren't the greatest.

...

[he can't even begin to react to how wrong he thinks you are, Asch, they are totally the greatest]

No one type is the greatest, actually. They all have their own individual strengths and weaknesses. Most trainers tend to raise a variety of types, but that doesn't give you as much of an opportunity to understand the nuances of one particular type.

Furthermore, it's not as though Ground-type Pokemon can only learn Ground-type techniques. They're just at their best when they use them.

[Variety is the greatest, man...!!

Also Pokemon sound bizarre and overly complex.]

Just how widespread is this training trend in your world? You're the first adult I've run into who's involved with it- the rest are a bunch of kids.

It's... common enough, I suppose, but only very skilled trainers attempt it.

...Very skilled children.

[Yeah, pardon his doubts there. Really? Really?]

...Not all trainers are children, you know.

The ratio of adult-to-child trainers here seems strange to me, that's all.

I'll admit, it's a bit strange to me, too. It's a bit... disproportionate, isn't it?

Well, whatever. So they're captured and trained, fine. What are they used for?

Quite a lot of things, but mostly battle.

So they're soldiers?

Sort of. For the most part, Pokemon battling is something like a sports competition-though of course, it can be more serious than that.

Sounds a little like the coliseum.

The coliseum?

[DID IT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH A REALLY OBVIOUSLY EVIL LOOKING GUY TRAINING BRAINWASHED AND CRAZY MONSTERS, BY ANY CHANCE...]

A sports arena developed by the crown to keep people occupied and entertained during times of peace. Warriors volunteer to fight against monsters for prize money and fame.

It's... something like that, I suppose. Though, really, it's more of a cultural thing, I think.

You don't think that entertainment is a part of culture?

Oh, no, of course I do. I mean that in the sense that practically everyone does it, not just warriors.

So you don't need particular skills to train these monsters?

[voice]

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