phantomguild

[phantomguild]

Fanart for @asksavel to celebrate Dravol's rebirth!

+ Bonus silly doodle I threw together (this takes place the instant Mint found out).

Mint is an excited nyoomin' green noodle.

[phantomguild]

probably this one. acacia just straight up bluescreening (it happens sometimes).

though this semi-noncanon doodle i did a few eternities ago is also pretty good imo ( + small cameo of shaymin runway version of rosemary from shaymincafe )

first timeline was a bit wild, including finding a way to keep from causing a paradox

(Ok, please reblog this with one of the funniest faces your character has ever made. I just wanna see the goofiness. I’ve probably drawn funnier faces but this one has me cracking up at the moment.)

[phantomguild]

(@ShayminCafe) Shaymes approached Destiny and bowed again. "It seems your talk with Caspar and the Magi was uplifting. That is great to see. For someone bearing the weight of so many timelines, it is good to let a little of that burden off your shoulders. Will we ever see you again? Or is Acacia's friendship with the cafe staff something that would prevent you from ever visiting?"

Destiny turned to look at Shaymes, picking up her blindfold. Though she decides not to put it back on just yet, so instead she just wraps it around her neck like a second scarf. A small smile appears on her face as she reaches up to touch the crown of flowers she'd been given.

"Thanks Shaymes. I feel like it definitely helped. I'd definitely like to visit from time to time, should fate allow me. So long as Acacia doesn't take notice of me in particular, the timeline shouldn't be derailed. It has been a timeline or two since I last visited. I've kind of missed their Shaymin Sherbet and Café au Shay."

She briefly paused, realizing that she never really specified how long any single loop was for her. "For a bit of reference, that's about 850 years, more or less anyway."

"But you don't have to worry about me vanishing entirely. You'll definitely see me a few other times, and if this timeline really is 'the one', I'm guaranteed to show up for the final battle. I've got a massive bone to pick with the Hollow for all it's put me through, let alone what it's done to everyone else. Like hell I'd pass up the opportunity to finally get some payback."

[phantomguild]

@pokeask-magi-retreat

Destiny took a breath, grass softly rustling beneath her paws as she approached the trio of lights, scarf blowing in the wind behind her. She gently smiled up at them, reaching into a small bag she'd brought with her.

She set down a simple clay bowl, lining the inside with different kinds of berries, species that were exceedingly rare, and each with a different combination of flavors. Beside the bowl, she set down a thermos filled with fresh water, the cap slightly loosened to more easily remove with paws.

"Hello there," she greeted. "I don't know if you've met my counterpart in this timeline, but I'm sure you'll recognize her if she shows up. I don't really have any big questions or requests. I just wanted to offer you something for the heck of it."

"Call it atonement if you desire." She said, taking out her book and, with practiced precision, opening it to the page that described Acacia's greatest sin... her greatest sin. One that helped set the countdown to her world's destruction in motion, a cataclysm she and Cin had spent countless millennia working to prevent at least one timeline from falling victim to. It's clear that she's turned to this page a great many times.

"So many worlds. Each time changing a small part of the timeline. Guiding a hero differently, perhaps making them a different Pokémon when they arrive in our world..."

Destiny flipped through the pages of the book. So many different timelines, with minimal changes in the eventual outcome that she was working hard to prevent: absolute annihilation of her universe. But this timeline, it was the most unique one.

Two new players in Echo, Acacia's mirror counterpart, and Nameless, the first Monarch Experiment, were already setting this outcome down a radically different chain of events. And in that chain of events, she found a glimmer of hope...

"So many things are different in this timeline, I can't even begin to guess what might happen..." She said softly, reaching the end of the book, blank pages staring up at her, waiting to be filled with what's to come.

She set the book down on the grass beside her. "And you know what? After so long... So many times watching the same events play out over and over..." She reached up towards her blindfold, tentatively rubbing the fabric that had covered her eyes. The Shaymin wrapped her paw around the end, beginning to tug it away. Her eyes opened slowly, revealing a piercing blue color that gently glowed. She blinked a few times, her eyesight readjusting to the light around her.

"I'm beginning to think... Perhaps this timeline... It can be the one where things turn out alright..."

"This could be the one where everyone's sacrifices to get me and Cin here weren't in vain..." She paused again, thinking of the other sole survivor's gambit to buy her enough time to open her first gate, so long ago ... and who inevitably burnt her life away to give her the chance to make a better outcome. "Mint's especially..."

To her, every collective sacrifice all of her friends made across the multitude of different outcomes she and Cin had created, all of it led to one goal: a world that could continue to live. That's the only thing she wished for right now, even if such a world didn't have a place for her. She smiled up at the Magi.

"Thanks for listening to me rant about all that. I think it's helped me get some of my thoughts in order."

"Plus, I've just gotta say that you look really nice!" She briefly paused, blinking as she looked to the others, which to her were just balls of light. "... Even though I can only really see one of you."

"And if this timeline's Acacia ever drops by, I was never here. Shay would never let Cin and I hear the end of it if it found out about my little trip here."

[phantomguild]

@pokeask-magi-retreat

Destiny took a breath, grass softly rustling beneath her paws as she approached the trio of lights, scarf blowing in the wind behind her. She gently smiled up at them, reaching into a small bag she'd brought with her.

She set down a simple clay bowl, lining the inside with different kinds of berries, species that were exceedingly rare, and each with a different combination of flavors. Beside the bowl, she set down a thermos filled with fresh water, the cap slightly loosened to more easily remove with paws.

"Hello there," she greeted. "I don't know if you've met my counterpart in this timeline, but I'm sure you'll recognize her if she shows up. I don't really have any big questions or requests. I just wanted to offer you something for the heck of it."

"Call it atonement if you desire." She said, taking out her book and, with practiced precision, opening it to the page that described Acacia's greatest sin... her greatest sin. One that helped set the countdown to her world's destruction in motion, a cataclysm she and Cin had spent countless millennia working to prevent at least one timeline from falling victim to. It's clear that she's turned to this page a great many times.

"So many worlds. Each time changing a small part of the timeline. Guiding a hero differently, perhaps making them a different Pokémon when they arrive in our world..."

Destiny flipped through the pages of the book. So many different timelines, with minimal changes in the eventual outcome that she was working hard to prevent: absolute annihilation of her universe. But this timeline, it was the most unique one.

Two new players in Echo, Acacia's mirror counterpart, and Nameless, the first Monarch Experiment, were already setting this outcome down a radically different chain of events. And in that chain of events, she found a glimmer of hope...

"So many things are different in this timeline, I can't even begin to guess what might happen..." She said softly, reaching the end of the book, blank pages staring up at her, waiting to be filled with what's to come.

She set the book down on the grass beside her. "And you know what? After so long... So many times watching the same events play out over and over..." She reached up towards her blindfold, tentatively rubbing the fabric that had covered her eyes. The Shaymin wrapped her paw around the end, beginning to tug it away. Her eyes opened slowly, revealing a piercing blue color that gently glowed. She blinked a few times, her eyesight readjusting to the light around her.

"I'm beginning to think... Perhaps this timeline... It can be the one where things turn out alright..."

"This could be the one where everyone's sacrifices to get me and Cin here weren't in vain..." She paused again, thinking of the other sole survivor's gambit to buy her enough time to open her first gate, so long ago ... and who inevitably burnt her life away to give her the chance to make a better outcome. "Mint's especially..."

To her, every collective sacrifice all of her friends made across the multitude of different outcomes she and Cin had created, all of it led to one goal: a world that could continue to live. That's the only thing she wished for right now, even if such a world didn't have a place for her. She smiled up at the Magi.

"Thanks for listening to me rant about all that. I think it's helped me get some of my thoughts in order."

"Plus, I've just gotta say that you look really nice!" She briefly paused, blinking as she looked to the others, which to her were just balls of light. "... Even though I can only really see one of you."

"And if this timeline's Acacia ever drops by, I was never here. Shay would never let Cin and I hear the end of it if it found out about my little trip here."

[phantomguild]

As the evening went on, and having got his answer, Kyurem decided to indulge the invitations from the other partygoers and eat something. No matter how old he got, or where he went, the simple pleasure of good food was something that was timeless.

Featuring:

Raiden and Mariko @askstormscall

Destiny @phantomguild

Nat @asktheisle

Essie @ask-aeos-company

Tempora and Iter @ask-the-fogbound-serpent

Poni @ogre-n-partner

Wo @the-feral-one

Apollo @ask-the-diamond-kingdom

Jellybean @waffledragon10

Crewel @crewel-intentions

Thanks for everyone sending in asks and interactions! I hope you enjoyed the event as I did. ^^~

[phantomguild]

Destiny stared at her glass that she refilled, her thoughts growing darker by the minute. She should've been able to do more over the centuries. If she was stronger, maybe she'd have been able to fix her world sooner. Repeating time, seeing her world fall to the cataclysm again and again had taken its toll on her morale. However, a small group of voices pulled her back to reality.

"Hm?" She mumbled, finally noticing the Pokémon that had approached her.

Destiny's ear twitched as she registered the marshadow's voice. She tentatively took one of the sweets from his outstretched hand, attempting to force a smile, at least for this one's peace of mind. "Thanks. I was just thinking about..." She paused, the words failing her on how to shorten it down. "... my making up for my greatest mistake."

"It's fine," she said, trying to shield herself. "Getting the chain of events to prevent my world's destruction isn't anyone else's responsibility but mine and Cin's."

"I mean, I'm the one that helped light the match leading up to everything back in the Limestone Caverns, and I haven't even been able to fix it after all these millennia. So it'd be pretty pathetic if I couldn't even make it up to everyone in my timeline for that."

Destiny took a moment to process what was in front of her. She'd seen hybrids before, and in fact, she'd grew up alongside one in her village, but she'd never seen one like this before. Shaking herself out of her brief reverie, she took a cookie from the edge of the plate.

"Oh, uh, thanks Waffle. I said this earlier, but my name's Destiny." Biting into the treat, she let her thoughts wander for a moment. "Though that's just my... alias, I guess you can say."

[phantomguild]

Destiny sits at the end of the bar, idly stirring a glass of lum juice with a straw as she thinks back on everything that's occurred over her long journey. How things might've turned out if she hadn't been so desperate.

She knew from experience that many events across the timeline were immutable no matter how or what she tried. One of those was her great mistake that, even now, continues to ripple across the universe. Letting out an exasperated sigh, she just ditches the straw and straight up chugs the whole thing, setting the glass back down afterwards, no matter how tempting it was to just slam it. Didn't need to go breaking anything else.

She could perhaps use a conversation to get these feelings out, or some general cheering up.

(Also if anyone wants an ask, just reply to this. Though I'd definitely appreciate an event ask in return since my inbox is pretty cleared of those atm.)

[phantomguild]

Oh this is perfect--

I definitely needed that laugh. Thank you-

im kind of curious how memeable my green bean is if youre still taking these

also sorry im late on this. yesterday was certainly a trip and i wasnt looking at my dash much-

[phantomguild]

[ Reply to this ; @ask-the-golden-goo ]

"Well, I mostly look like this thanks to harnessing the Aspect of Time. Fully awakening it, any of the aspects really, comes with some pretty unique abilities, and I've had nothing but time to learn to control it."

She breathed out, her body becoming enshrouded in cobalt light that brightened to being almost entirely white. Purple cracks appeared across her body before, like shattering glass, her form exploded off of her. Purple and red mist briefly surrounded her, slightly staining the temporal energy as it all dispersed.

"This is what I look like when I'm not in my Awakened Form. It's a bit more plain than you'd think looking at me in my other form, isn't it?"

When the lights and dark aura settled, you'd certainly be forgiven for mistaking Destiny for most other Shaymin. The only thing that set her apart, accessories aside, was the color of her hedge, slightly dulled with age, the bits of hedge on her legs, and the fact that her flower lacked any leaves.

"And on the topic of my world..." Her smile faded as she thought back on it, and her hundreds of attempts to avert complete disaster, as well as how everything started. "...Let's just say that there aren't a lot of Pokémon left in general after the Hollow returned. It's currently in the middle of an apocalypse, in a way."

"On top of that, most deities have gone into hiding, if they or their mortal conduits are corrupted, boom, the end. It already has two through it's hold on Yveltal and Darkrai; that's one of the things I could never change. And even though I'm not proud of it... It almost got the power of Time, too. Latching onto me in my grief, and my desire to save my brother... at any cost."

[phantomguild]

( @phantomguild ; ???)

The Shaymin leaned down, observing the Goomy's coloration. She'd never seen a shiny Goomy in specific, but she did know enough about the species to know what they normally look like.

"Out of curiosity, you're what some call a 'shiny pokémon', aren't you? Don't see too many of them in my travels, especially with my universe in the shape it's in."

Slime Boi: I'm sure you'll be able to find some more if you believe.

*He looked curiously at the shaymin.*

Slime Boi: We've gotta talk about you. I mean, I've seen a lot of shaymin in my time and you've certainly not got the colours of a regular shaymin. It's a vibe I dig. Go out of the box. Screw the norm. What's up with that? And also what was up with that comment about your universe? Like, is it in bad shape? You could say I know a thing or two about universes so I wanna know what the dealio is there.

[phantomguild]

Artwork from Yesterday's big lore ask because I personally like how they turned out.

There's quite a bit more info about the Aspects, but I'll leave that for after the event. Destiny's said all she's able to right now.

Plus an extra little bonus of the Aspect pattern and kind of showing the relationship between them in some way now that I've officially revealed the deal with them. -w-

(Finding the 'start from center' option for ellipses in Clip Studio made this so much easier than it would've been otherwise (please don't ask what i was doing before))

i tried to make the shades of blue unique from each other because azelf, dialga, and xerneas all have blue as their primary color, so i went with cyan for willpower, cobalt for time, and light blue for life.

[phantomguild]

Capital sat in front of Destiny, eyes almost gleaming with curiosity. "I must ask, what is this whole deal with 'Aspects', and the 'Aspect of Time'? It sounds quite interesting, if you ask me. Was this 'First Hero' that you mentioned one of the few that could awaken to such power?"

"Well, the story starts off pretty similar to the Champions of old... Not that there's much older than me in my universe by now. Anyway, like the Champions, they were brought from the human world. They took the form of a Mew with a split tail. There are records of a partner, similar to all but one of the humans brought to my world, but nobody can remember them."

Destiny sat on the sand, crossing her forelegs in front of herself as she recalled what she'd been told, as well as what she'd witnessed herself once or twice when she overshot her destination during her time loop travels.

"During their journey to prepare for the ultimate confrontation, my world's deities gave them fragments of their own power, pooling it into them, as well as their hope." Destiny drew a circle in the ground, with lines going through as she listed off the aspects. "Willpower, Knowledge, Emotion, Time, Space, Life, Decay, Dreams, Nightmares... And above the rest, in the league of its own and requiring the others: Creation." As she listed the final one, she drew a smaller circle in the center.

"Without the other Aspects, Creation supposedly has no power to draw from. They were... shall we say, liberal, in their use of these powers. But even with these gifts, it wasn't enough to win the fight."

"In the end, they could not defeat the Hollow, so instead they made one last gambit..."

"Forcing out all Aspects except Creation and scattering them among mortals in an attempt to keep it permanently out of reach of the Hollow Pokémon..." She slashed at her drawing several times, leaving only the circle representing creation behind. "And in their place, trapping the Hollow inside of their body, before using their dwindling power of Creation to form a seal around themself."

"A seal that they hoped, and believed, would last forever."

She rubbed at one of her ears, feeling it twitch slightly. "Of course, it didn't. The seal keeps it from regaining its true power. That thing breaks before we're ready, and another timeline falls to the cataclysm."

"But I've got a good feeling about this one. Call it a gut feeling, but Echo and the Porygon didn't exist as they do now in previous timelines. Anyway, sorry for yapping your ears off."

Destiny stood up, stretching their legs as they cracked a tiny smile towards Capital. "If you want some more specific details, you might have to ask Aster or Vivian. After all these years, my memory on the specifics are kinda fuzzy so they know a lot more about this stuff than I do right now. ... or Shay, if it pops its head out of the void. Its the best one to ask about all this, being the one that gave them the Aspect of Dreams to begin with."

[phantomguild]

@askthehoenngods Kyurem @ Destiny: "Hmmm," he rubbed his chin a little while looking at the book in the Shaymin's clutches. From what he understood of beings from this one's specific Universe, books were not common.

So how did this one get it?

"I met someone from your 'verse," he stated, "they told me that books were rare. How is it that you came upon this one?"

"Well, this book is actually one that you've likely already seen, during one of Aster's rare instances of leaving the village." Destiny began. "It's both true that this is the same book as his, and false."

"As for how I came into possession of it, that's simple. I'm the one who wrote it and gave it to Aster. Or at least I will have gone back in time to give it to him after a previous attempt. The mechanics of all this are migraine-inducing, but I'll try to keep it as simple as I can."

"I retrieve the book in the future after an incident involving Gracia Village and Hollow Pokémon forces everyone to evacuate. Then I take the book, go back in time to chronicle the events of the timeline that just took place, then give the updated copy to Aster in the distant past, thus creating another new timeline."

Destiny opened the book to the first page, slightly shuffling her blindfold to reveal a sliver of glowing cobalt. The page had one thing written on it: 'Aster, Do not retrieve during The Fall'. "Of course, I made sure to specifically instruct Aster to leave the book behind during the attack. And for the most part, unless absolutely necessary, I don't interfere with the timeline of my own universe while I get everything in this book. That'd just create another new timeline, separate from the one I'm trying to write down, and that'd be a completely separate headache."

She shook her head, clapping the cover shut with a simple motion, before fixing her blindfold. "At least this idea is going better than the first time I tried meddling with history... At least as far as over 200 millennia of planning goes anyway."

[phantomguild]

Just for easy reference, this is the book that Destiny is carrying around with her. If Tumblr works with me today, I should be answering an ask about it at some point soonish.

Also attaching an image of the cover by itself for people to use in the event they draw Destiny with the book.

[phantomguild]

( @askpokecallcenter ) Hoku@Destiny : "Oh, you look OLD.", they said aloud without thinking it through. They yelp from the comment they said. "OH, I AM SO SORRY! I hope i didnt offend you!! Its just.. the way you said that you havent talked to people for so long.. How long has it been actually? Again, really really sorry!"

"It's fine. It's not rude at all to me, I'll admit, I am pretty old. That is kind of one of the obvious questions you'd ask someone like me. As for how long its been since I've really spoken to other Pokémon..."

Destiny thought about it for a bit. Truthfully, she'd hardly spoken to anyone else over the last couple hundred timelines. She didn't see much of a point in it since, if nothing changed, they'd be doomed to the same fate anyway.

"At least 170 millennia, with some heavy guesstimating." was her answer. "Timelines kind of melt together in your mind when you've seen so many different variations."

"If you want to know my actual age, I lost count somewhere around 500 thousand. Legendary and Mythical Pokémon are kinda pseudo-immortal; we can't die of age, or if we do, it takes what feels like an eternity."

[phantomguild]

With my inbox cleared of event asks for the moment, I'd def appreciate an ask or two, be it one of the ones in my ask hints, or just general asks. -w-

Magi Retreat '25 Ref + Ask Hints/Call

Ref and ask hints below cut.

Also feel free to leave a reply on this post if you want an ask for the event!

Who are you?

That gate that you opened?

Any plans for the event?

Who's "Cin"?

How long has it been since you've talked to other people?

Why do you have Aster's book?

Documenting this timeline?

The 'you' in this timeline?

Aspects / the First Hero?