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Dr-Kineil-Wicks — PKMNCC--July Event Week 2--MASQUERADE! WIP
#pokemon #crescentcavern
Published: 2017-07-22 00:00:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 1742; Favourites: 13; Downloads: 0
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Story time!
Weaton was still not even remotely sure about all this.
“Let’s go over everything one more time,” Yin-Ko counselled as they neared the marquis’ mansion—a quick call to Roy had given Weaton the current date, along with ‘oh hey you’re coming? Great! You’ll never recognize me in my outfit.’ So Weaton at least knew when to show up and that Roy was going to be there. And LaLia too, most likely.
“Ah-HEM—are you even listening to me?” Yin-Ko demanded.
“Uh—sorry,” Weaton noised. “You were saying?”
Yin-Ko blew an irritated sigh. “You go in, try to remain calm and enjoy yourself. I’ll maintain a psychic link with you so I know if anything goes sideways. I won’t affect the psychics’ effects on you unless I’m certain something is wrong. You’ll still have the rest of your little entourage, so if worst comes to worst you’ll still have protection. Any questions so far?”
Weaton glanced back at his following Pokémon before looking back to Yin-Ko. “I changed my mind—can I go home now?”
“No,” Yin-Ko ordered, flicking his fingers at Weaton as they neared the entrance to the grounds. With guards stationed. Ulk. “You stay here and act like you’re enjoying yourself. Who knows, maybe you’ll succeed in fooling yourself into having a good time. Meantime I’m going to be doing a little digging. If you need me, just give me a thought.”
“I do what?” Weaton asked, confused—but Yin-Ko had already winked out of existence. “Aaand he’s gone. Great chat.” He looked down at Iggy, who was keeping a firm hold on Jojo’s wrist and studiously ignoring Stitch running around him and roaring in his dragon outfit, chased by Scrump in his dragon-warrior outfit. “Are we ready?”
Iggy’s expression said he was ready to go home too, but Jojo chirped excitedly and Stitch and Scrump paused long enough to give similar affirmative noises.
Two ‘krai’s prompted him to look up and remind himself that Francoeur and Creedence had tagged along too, dressed up in a white phantom outfit and a black pirate outfit, respectively.
“Right,” Weaton noised, less than thrilled at the spooky entourage. But at least they looked happy to be here. Maybe. “Right. Okay, let’s go….”
Weaton tried very hard not to fidget and shuffle as he waited in line, tried to pick out someone he might know as he waited. Either the psychic suggestion was working already, or everyone was dressed up that good—he didn’t recognize anyone. And it was making him much more nervous than he had expected.
“Invitation?” the guard asked as he neared.
“Uh?” Weaton noised, startled.
Check your pocket.
Weaton jumped at the sudden voice, checked his pockets—
Check your inside pocket, you ninny, Yin-Ko psychically scolded.
Weaton grimaced, felt in the inside pocket of his suit—yes, right there—held out the invitation to the guard, who checked it and waved him through. Great. And his Pokémon—better.
“Do you mind?” Weaton asked in an undertone, as soon as they were out of earshot—he glanced around, but didn’t see any black shadows lurking about.
Not at all, Yin-Ko replied airily. And while we’re at it: try to loosen up—you’ll never get anywhere working yourself into a bundle of nerves like this.
Right. Remember his intent. Loosen up, relax, enjoy himself…pretend he wasn’t Weaton for like five minutes.
I highly recommend channeling your inner Yin-Ko.
“I don’t have an inner Yin-Ko,” Weaton protested as they neared the doors, much to Iggy’s consternation. “And if I did, that’s horrifying.”
Ha ha. Stand up straight, square your shoulders…and try to take a deep breath before you talk.
Oi. But the deep breath was a good idea. Deep breath, step forward and over the threshold—
His mind suddenly went fuzzy and his mouth felt dry. What was going on? Who were all these people? Why was he here—why was there a pair of Darkrai following him? What—
Something suddenly sliced through the fog, sweeping his confusion away. Weaton. Right. That was him. And those were his Darkrai—or at least, they wouldn’t leave him alone. And the Pokémon clustered by his feet and blinking away similar confusion were also his. Why would he—
One of the psychics isn’t all that good at their job, Yin-Ko suddenly sounded. I’m not tampering any further, since I don’t want to set off any alarms, but you’ll at least recognize your own Pokémon now.
Weaton looked at Iggy, who looked up at him with what was possibly similar concern—Weaton realized he had seized up at the close proximity of his Pokémon, when he hadn’t recognized them. Wind down, wind down…and probably get out of the way while he was working through his minor nervous breakdown.
Stitch climbed to his shoulder as he relocated himself to an alcove near the buffet, growling at everything. So he wasn’t the only one who didn’t like that. And Creedence and Francoeur glancing at each other with worried expressions. Of the lot of them, Jojo seemed to be the only one…well, the first one to recover at least, since she was chirping happily next to Weaton and leaning on his leg. Well, at least there was that.
“Can I go home now?” Weaton asked.
No, Yin-Ko said. Enjoy yourself while I snoop.
“Would ‘have fun’ even be an appropriate thing to say?”
Considering it’s me doing detective work, yes, it’s entirely appropriate.
Weaton sighed, redirected his attention to the sound of a fork hitting crystal to see the marquis standing on a platform tapping a glass. Weaton was sure if he tried that, he’d end up breaking the glass.
“May I have everyone’s attention please!” the marquis called. “Thank you all for coming, and it’s so nice to see you all dressed in the outfits I had especially made!”
And that still made Weaton especially uncomfortable.
“Now, before we begin, I want to explain our very special ball!” the marquis continued. “Don’t worry about not recognizing anyone—that’s the effect of our psychics! It gives you the chance to let loose and have fun! Don’t worry, they won’t harm you—”
Weaton couldn’t help the snort that came out.
“And I want to explain how this all will work! There are a few ways to break the spell….One is to take off your mask—that will allow everyone in the room to recognize you—and you will recognize everyone else!”
Weaton wasn’t sure he liked that idea—what if he didn’t recognize anyone?
“Two is to say who you are—the person speaking to you will then recognize you!”
Again, that sounded a little one-sided to Weaton.
“And finally three—stay past midnight! That is when they stop working—if you’re still on the grounds when that happens, you will recognize everyone, and they will recognize you!”
Or Weaton would turn into a pumpkin. Or gremlins—gremlins were a possibility.
“So if you wish to retain that magical mysterious feeling: don’t take off your mask, don’t tell anyone who you are, and go home before midnight!”
“And don’t eat after midnight,” Weaton muttered, still thinking about gremlins. Stitch sniggered on his shoulder.
“That way, the night will forever be mysterious!” the marquis said, clasping their hands together. “Unless of course you go around telling everybody you were at the party! Now go enjoy yourselves!”
Weaton was more than a little worried as everyone started clapping politely and mingling—he wasn’t sure if it was a lingering aftereffect of that cruddy psychic experience or what, but he was feeling a bit more snarky than usual. Maybe it was Yin-Ko’s fault.
I resent that remark, Yin-Ko sounded. But snark is an improvement over whine, for the record.
Weaton honestly didn’t think so. And he honestly didn’t know what to do. Did he even want to try talking to any of these people when he didn’t recognize any of them? It was majorly tempting to rip his mask off and out himself to everyone…but he couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that something bad would happen to him if he did.
“So,” he tried finally, glancing at Creedence. “Some party, huh?”
Creedence looked like he thought that was a very silly comment, while Francoeur had already drifted away and was watching the band playing. Stitch, meanwhile, had decided that the buffet line was the best place to be.
“So I guess it’s just us,” Weaton said, looking at his remaining Pokémon—which quickly lost Iggy and Jojo when Jojo dragged Iggy out onto the floor when the band struck up. “So just us,” Weaton corrected, looking at Creedence and Scrump—and was Francoeur playing with the band?
“I…don’t know,” Weaton said finally. “My life just took a very surreal turn. Like Distortion Zone surreal. Something kooky will happen at midnight—I know it.”
Oh please don’t reference that show, Yin-Ko muttered. I couldn’t stop thinking about that show during Opposite Month, and I don’t want a repeat of Opposite Month.
“Really? You watched The Distortion Zone?”
I repeat: I don’t want to talk about it. Go mingle.
Weaton looked at Creedence, who shrugged. That about summed up Weaton’s opinion of things so far.
“Well…I guess we’re mingling,” Weaton said.
An hour or so later had seen Weaton mostly hugging the walls and chatting with the other wallflowers, trying and failing to dance, sampling some of the food (and being mildly disappointed that no one had spiked the punch yet—that was a thing he had always heard about at parties), and being scared witless when he had decided to take a walk by the lake and had come face-to-face with a Mega Gyarados.
Now he was back in the ballroom, lurking by the wall again and not feeling the whole party thing. He had tried chatting with some people, but without the familiarity of actually knowing who he was talking to, most of his attempts had died in his throat. The urge to take his mask off was overwhelming, but so was the feeling that something bad would happen if he did—he needed a new plan.
A half an hour of requesting Phantom of the Opera music probably wasn’t the best of plans, but he had honestly had ‘Masquerade’ stuck in his head the whole time he was here—and he was kind of dressed like the Phantom, so win.
Currently, he was watching Francoeur and Jojo apparently singing ‘Angel of Music,’ which was an improvement over earlier when some bat had startled Jojo and prompted Francoeur and Creedence to quickly come to her rescue—someone had put a hand to their face at the sight of the bat, which made Weaton think that it had belonged to them. Well, it wasn’t like his Pokémon were behaving any better, as a glance at the buffet table showed—Stitch was sitting in the middle of a dish and eating everything his four hands could reach.
His Pokémon—that still made him pause.
And it made him realize why he wasn’t having any fun: he didn’t recognize any of his friends.
Rainy probably would have tacked on dancing to her ‘How to Train Weaton’ thing, and Lindsey and Eli would have probably been trying to convince him and probably Roy to go with them and explore everything. Roy and Chrome might have been eyeing the dance floor with everybody dropping hints. Hammy and Tyto would probably be critiquing everybody’s outfit based on the abundance of lace, and Nameless would have probably spiked the punch by now.
It was no fun by himself, he decided.
He felt a tug at his pants leg, looked down to see Scrump eyeing him worriedly. At least, he thought that was what the little stuffed dragon-warrior was doing.
“I’m going to go…look around,” Weaton said, pointing at the nearby archway. “Not by the lake this time.”
Scrump waved his sword and shield around, started following Weaton as he went out into the dark hall. Well, at least he wouldn’t be alone in this venture.
Except the hall was pretty…dark.
“Should have probably thought about this,” he muttered, eyeing the hall that only had patches of moonlight lighting it. “I am…going to go find Iggy. Right. Get some light on the—”
“Who let a Gyarados in here!?”
Oh boy—and here he thought he had ditched the thing when he ducked through a door too small for it. Obviously he was mistaken, if the sounds coming from the ballroom were any indication—he winced and tugged his hat down, infinitely grateful no one could recognize him tonight as he backed away down the hall.
And then the Gyarados barreled out into said hall, spotted him, thumped its tail a few times before charging him—Weaton was too frozen with fear to move, and Scrump was currently hiding behind his leg.
Fortunately, it skidded to a halt before hitting him, stamped its forelegs as it thumped its tail but didn’t touch him—until it licked him, which was a full-body lick reminiscent of Rhode’s affection. Ick. Check his hat and mask—okay, those were still there.
“Was that really necessary?” he asked, earning another round of tail-thumping. “Look, I’m sure you’re a really nice…fish…but I really don’t…um…please don’t look like that,” he said, when the Gyarados started sagging. “I really don’t…all right, fine. You can stay. NO LICKING!” he ordered, hands up to ward off another sign of affection. “That’s too much, okay? And it smells like fish.”
The Gyarados settled for thumping its tail and making several deep rumbling aarks, prompting Weaton to try to wave at it and calm it down. It ended up being a losing battle.
“Come on, you…um…you….I need something to call you,” Weaton said, heading down the hall in an endeavor to get the Gyarados away from the ballroom. It followed him, so it was sort of a success. “I…hm…Humboldt? Because you look like you have an ice-thing going on…or name you after a lake monster, since you’re technically a monster that came out of a lake.”
“Aark arrgh,” the Gyarados noised, managing to thump its tail and follow Weaton at the same time.
“Nessie?” Weaton guessed. At the Gyarados’ dumbfounded expression: “It was the first one I thought of. Uh…I’m not sure of…Tessie? No…Flathead—definitely not.” Didn’t even need the Gyarados’ disgusted expression. “Uh…Champ? There’s one named Champ—” Lots of tail thumping. “Okay then, Champ—please stop before you break something. I don’t think I can afford anything in this place.”
One last thump, but the newly-named Champ obliged.
“Okay,” Weaton muttered, going to wipe his forehead before recalling that yes, he still had a mask on. “Okay…new plan: we go find a big enough door to get you back out before something gets broken. And…I guess something else at this point, since you went through the ballroom.”
“Aargkh,” Champ noised happily.
“Well…right. Come on then…Scrump?” Weaton asked, looking down and finding that the Mimikyu was no longer there. “Scrump?” he called again, looking around. “Scrump! Where are—oh, there you are,” he said, going over to where the little stuffed dragon warrior was peeking into a room. “What are you doing? We’re not doing that right now—we need to find a door to get Champ through—AAA!”
Weaton had put his hand on the door when he was addressing Scrump, had shoved it open to find that there was someone else already in there—who was equally startled by Weaton’s sudden appearance.
“Who are you!?” the person demanded. “What are you doing!?”
“W—” Weaton started, before biting down on his tongue—telling someone his name was one of those things the marquis had said, that Weaton was certain would end badly. “Uh—same as you! Uh…what are you doing?”
Whoever it was drew themselves up, like they were trying for offended instead of flustered. “Well, ah…same as you! You’re poking around, right?”
“Er….”
“Gragh.”
“I was—actually looking for a big door,” Weaton said, thumbing over his shoulder to point at Champ, who sounded like he was right behind him and whose presence Weaton was suddenly overwhelmingly grateful for. Mess with him with a big ol’ Mega-Gyarados behind him! “Ah…why are you….”
The person shuffled a bit. “Ah…something seemed screwy here. Who are you supposed to be anyway? The Phantom of the Opera?”
“Uh…maybe.” Not that Weaton thought he sang that good. “Should you really be…uh, doing that by yourself?”
The person fidgeted. “Well…no. But I didn’t recognize anyone…which is kind of the point…but I didn’t feel right asking a practical stranger to go snooping with me.”
Weaton bit his lip, looked down at Scrump and then back at Champ, hands resting on the doorjamb and effectively blocking the person in. Not that he’d offer much resistance if the person decided to go, but….
Channel his inner Yin-Ko, if such a thing existed. Pretend he wasn’t Weaton for all of five minutes and step out of his comfort zone.
“Well now you’re not,” Weaton said, sticking a hand out. “Snooping by yourself, I mean.”
The person eyed him warily. “I still don’t know who you are, so it’s still snooping with a stranger.”
“You already said who I am—the Phantom of the Opera.”
The person snorted. “So who are you?” Weaton asked.
“Nunoya,” the person said.
“Fair enough,” Weaton said. “But I reserve the right to call you that for the rest of the night.”
“Fair enough, Phantom,” the person said, accepting his hand. “Now come on—I saw some stairs earlier, but I didn’t want to try them by myself.”
Weaton stepped aside, let the person pass, a couple of Pokémon tagging along with them. Okay, potentially dangerous situation….
‘Yin-Ko,’ he thought.
You rang? Yin-Ko chimed.
‘I’m um…going to be snooping with…someone. Thought I’d let you know in case something happened…where are you?’
Up a few flights. Be careful.
That was Weaton’s entire modus operandi.
Because while he was going ahead and stepping out of his comfort zone, he wasn’t about to kill himself doing so either.
“Hey!” the person called. “You coming?”
“Coming,” Weaton said, trailing along behind them and gesturing for Scrump and Champ to follow.
Maybe this was what the point of the party was—intrigue and danger and a little bit of mystery.
So long as Weaton survived to go home, he’d be fine with that.
He hoped.
Final word count: 3,068 words
Event time! And Weaton is…off being nosy….But not as nosy as Yin-Ko.
Went and did that thing I shouldn’t again and did a several-panel thing…and then ran out of time to do it all. At the very least, have the lineart and some semi-shading, and I’ll get the color done eventually (time, why do you elude me so?).
So! Levels!
Full Body x 3 x 2 = 6
Partial x 2
Complex Background x 3 x 2 = 6
3,000/100 = 30
1,000+ word bonus x 3 x 2 = 6
+2 Event Levels
+2 Trainer Levels
6 + 2 + 6 + 30 + 6 + 2 + 2 = 54 levels for the EXP Share!
Full Body x 3
Complex Background x 2
3,000/100 = 30
1,000+ word bonus x 3 x 2 = 6
+2 Event Levels
+2 Trainer Levels
3 + 2 + 30 + 6 + 2 + 2 = 45 Levels for the EXP Share!
Full Body x 3
Complex Background x 2
3,000/100 = 30
1,000+ word bonus x 3 x 2 = 6
+2 Event Levels
+2 Trainer Levels
3 + 2 + 30 + 6 + 2 + 2 = 45 Levels!
Congratulations! Your Creedence has reached Level 100! Your Creedence maxed out!
Dressed as this bab I did a while back~
Full Body x 3
Complex Background x 2
3,000/100 = 30
1,000+ word bonus x 3 x 2 = 6
+2 Event Levels
+2 Trainer Levels
3 + 2 + 30 + 6 + 2 + 2 = 45 Levels!
Francoeur learned Round!
Tutor Berry Required
Tutor Berry Usage: comments.deviantart.com/1/5427…
Dressed as the guy he’s based on, from A Monster in Paris~
Full Body x 3
Complex Background x 2
3,000/100 = 30
1,000+ word bonus x 3 x 2 = 6
+2 Event Levels
+2 Trainer Levels
3 + 2 + 30 + 6 + 2 + 2 = 45 Levels!
Jojo learned Round!
Tutor Berry Required
Tutor Berry Usage: comments.deviantart.com/1/5427…
Is actually singing ‘ The Mirror’ with Francoeur, as it sounds like ‘ Angel of Music’ but has the duet between Christine and the Phantom.
Full Body x 3
Complex Background x 2
3,000/100 = 30
1,000+ word bonus x 3 x 2 = 6
+2 Event Levels
+2 Trainer Levels
3 + 2 + 30 + 6 + 2 + 2 = 45 Levels!
Is dressed up as the one and only Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon (also directed by Chris Sanders 
3,000/100 = 30
1,000+ word bonus x 3 x 2 = 6
+2 Event Levels
+2 Trainer Levels
30 + 6 + 2 + 2 = 40 Levels!
Does Scrump’s visual levels even count right now?....
Partial x 2 x 2 = 4
Complex Background x 2 x 2 = 4
3,000/100 = 30
1,000+ word bonus x 3 x 2 = 6
+2 Event Levels
+2 Trainer Levels
4 + 4 + 30 + 6 + 2 + 2 = 48 Levels!
Who let the Gyarados in? Who, who who-hoo?
Took him a while, but he’s getting into it.
Honorable Mention:
Liiiick~
EXP Counter:
54 + 45 + 5 = 104 Levels for the EXP Share
93 Levels go to: Scollard
Congratulations! Your Scollard reached Level 100! Your Scollard maxed out!
104 - 93 = 11
11 Levels go to: Hootie
Guest Stars:
Tyto OT Tyto-Tenebricosa
Chrome + Stacy OT anntheazelf101
Roy OT Dianamond
Lalia OT Dianamond
Human!Partial x 1
Human!Complex Background x 1
Human!Trainer Bonus x 1
Human!Event Bonus x 1
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4 Levels!
Eli OT Elyzalea
Frost + Lindsey OT Velnyx
Dahlia OT M1LK-CH3RRY
Jesti OT Halloween-Jester
Jesuta OT Halloween-Jester
Partial x 2
Complex Background x 2
Trainer Bonus x 2
Event Bonus x 2
2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 8 Levels!
Sam OT Anonymations
Barth OT Anonymations
Full Body x 3
Complex Background x 2
Trainer Bonus x 2
Event Bonus x 2
3 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 9 Levels!
Nameless, Rainy, + Kaz OT Reensies
Flyte OT pantrysystem
Lily OT gummygunner
Noctillo OT careas
I'm going to actually draw that out later~
…And this one joins the stack of pieces I need to finish when the time changes and it gets too cold to do anything outside….
Had ‘ Masquerade’ from The Phantom of the Opera stuck in my head from the moment I saw ‘masquerade’ in the last prompt, so it carries on here. I’ve never actually seen or read The Phantom of the Opera, despite listening to the soundtrack and reading a long while back a pretty good Yu-Gi-Oh! rewrite of it, so don’t expect me to be able to quote any scenes. I did actually try to watch the movie version with Gerard Butler several years back, but that didn’t work out for this reason:
Mom: “Oh hey, this college Full Sail has Creative Writing as a Master’s degree! Do you want me to send in for more information?”
Me: “Sure.”
Five minutes later:
*phone rings*
Me: “Hey, maybe that’s them already!” ßSaid sarcastically
*answers phone*
“Hello, this is so-and-so with Full Sail University—”
Me:
So maybe I’m being weird and waiting until I’m out of college to watch it….
Some of the names Weaton suggests when naming Champ are actual names of lake monsters—I found one list somewhere that had a bunch of lake monster names that were variations of Nessie, so…naming lake monsters is apparently like naming collies (“Come here, Lassie! Come here!”).
Yin-Ko is, of course, taking the opportunity to be nosy do some detective work….Rick Lai does some theorizing in his book Chronology of Shadows: A Timeline of the Shadow’s Exploits, and states that the Shadow has some relation to the Phantom of the Opera, so….
Weaton’s lack of enthusiasm for partying may stem from my own college experiences…just going to someplace isn’t as fun as if you know somebody there. 
And who is Weaton snooping with? Well, that’s up to whomever to decide.
Pokémon © Game Freak; Nintendo
The Phantom of the Opera © 1909 Gaston Leroux
The Shadow © Conde-Nast
Done in Adobe Photoshop (with a Cintiq! 
Related content
Comments: 4
Thanks for the name drop, also loving the introduction of Champ! He's got an awesome design also I feel a special connection to him because I named my first Magikarp, Champ xD What were the chances? You got it from Lake Champlain and I just shortened it from "Champion" because I thought Magikarps were fighters!
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This is so cool!
That first pannel makes Weaton and Yin-ko look so badass
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Unfinished, this is still so awesome. <3
Thank you very much for including Frost and Lindsey! Weaton! What are you doing? >A>
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haha~! They look so cool in your style >w<
Thanks for including them~! <3
Gahh, I just love anything with Weaton in it 
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