Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Namohysip]

Between Destiny Tower and Poppin' Arms was a short road, and near the base of the hill that Destiny Tower sat was another, tiny building, a perfect cube in shape. A single, sliding door opened for anybody who approached and pressed against the doorway, but the second entrance required authorization on the other side. Afterward, there was nothing more than a table, a few pieces of furniture, and a stairway going down. Next to the stairway seemed to be another door, as well as a button next to the door with an arrow pointing down. Curious...

The walls within the lab gave off little more than a cold, sterile atmosphere, pure white with materials that seemed more reinforced than even the Legend-resistant architecture of the city as a whole. Countless gadgets, prototypes, and failures lined the shelves with several stacks of notes next to each one, and some of them were locked behind protective but see-through cases. The air smelled like electricity.

The halls led to various other experimentation rooms. Some of them had mechanical whirring coming from the other side. Others were silent. Chip spent most of his time here, toiling away at inventions and other ideas to move Destiny Village forward, and other times other scientists and inventors visited to do the same--most notably, apparently, another Legend.

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"Hmm, they should be here soon..." Maple looked over her badge, watching everyone's icons skitter about on the screen. Then, she checked Treasure Town, where several of Spectrum seemed to frequently visit, even after their move-in to Destiny Village. She supposed it was only fair, considering they'd spent a whole month there and then some. Though, now that the machine was destroyed, they had very few leads on where to go next...

"You really think they'll be able to get us anything?" Soda asked, arms crossed.

"Groooogh," Flesh groaned.

"Yeah, we were about to get lunch," Soda said.

"Then get lunch," Maple said, sighing. "You didn't have to be here."

"Yeah, well, I'm curious. And you know Flesh can't go without me."

"I'm sure they wouldn't mind after everything else," Maple pointed out.

"Ehh, not gonna risk it," Soda said. "Flesh gets self-conscious about it."

"Groooghhh..."

 

[Namohysip]

"Ohhh, Reshiram isn't going to like this..."

Chip floated listlessly through the white halls of the research facility. He drifted with several papers floating in front of him, each one some kind of log or report that he had printed out. "It doesn't make sense. How did they replicate Maple's signal perfectly? Is there some kind of... security oversight in Reshiram's badge system? It just can't be!"

And now the Legend himself was coming. That wasn't good. Ohh that wasn't good. Those piercing, blue eyes were so frightening when something of his inventions went wrong... Wait! he knew how to keep him in check!

After a quick dial, Chip said, "Heyyyyyy Zekrom. You good?"

"Chip? What's going on? I heard there was an attack, but--"

"Yeees you seeee, there was a teeny tiny problem that I'm trying to figure out, and Reshiram's on his way because of a security breach in his Badge system--"

"Security breach? And Reshiram's on his way?"

"Yes. So I was wondering--"

"Good luck!" She hung up.

"--if... you... could..."

 

[Negrek]

Silver's rather unexpected, and rather spectacular, evolution had kind of put a damper on Nate's last visit to the lab. He hadn't even asked if Chip had found anything interesting in the pile of Rocket shit they'd dragged out of the Isle of Light, or anything at all about whatever the fuck had been going on with Maple's badge. And there was Silver's team, too, apparently living around here now. He needed to have a word or two with them, for whatever good it would do, given the fact that they spoke completely different fucking languages.

All this rushing around trying to pin people down. Sure would be nice if everything would stop going to shit around here so he could take some time off to go ice skating or watch a movie or whatever the fuck else Rocky was whining about today. But of course it wouldn't, so here he was headed underground to try and pry some answers out of this world's best excuse for a mad scientist, who also happened to look like a duck on some pretty high-quality drugs.

"What's up, Chip?" Nate asked when the inner set of lab doors whooshed open. "Got a few minutes?"

Rocky followed along behind. Thankfully he hadn't complained about having to come down here--apparently the place had enough gizmos lying around to keep him entertained.

 

[Negrek]

Nate would have preferred not to visit Chip's weird subterranean lair ever again during the time he spent on Cibus. It was probably inevitable, given the fact that the porygon-Z appeared to be the only tech guy in... anywhere, actually, and definitely the only one in their weird little fast-time bubble, or whatever exactly it was.

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just fucking been here as he finally made it past the murder staircase and into the lab proper. "What's up, hacker duck?" he said as he came through the door. "How's the fucking apocalypse treating you?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Hello, hello!" Chip called back, expecting Nate after being briefly contacted. He seemed to be in a much better mood after what had happened before... likely because he had been allowed to take a look at Poke Ball technology now that it had quite literally saved their god of gods. "Need something? I--oh, hello. Did Diyem cough you up next? I heard he's been feeling woozy again."

Silver stared at Chip, then at Nate for an explanation.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"It ain't like I've done joint questionin' before or anythin', but I reckon I understand the principles well enough."

Luz sauntered into the lab, some of her usual confidence bleeding back in now that there was a plan. Lexx wasn't exactly her idea of a sworn brother, but he'd surely make himself useful. This could be good!

{Hope all well. Gonna kick Chip about a bit until he fesses up about his misdeeds or we reckon he ain't done any worth carin' about.}

{Oh yeah? That's the inventor porygon, right? Thanks fer gettin' at it . . . an' good luck, Luz. I'll see you soon.}

Yeah, this could be good.

 

[Negrek]

Apparently the weird mewtwo was being kept in Chip's lab, which was horrifying on a number of levels. First, even if Chip wasn't in Giovanni's pocket, he was probably taking advantage of the mewtwo's coma or whatever the fuck to do all kinds of sketchy shit to him. And then there was, second, that lingering possibility that Chip was on Giovanni's side, ready to let the mewtwo go the moment he got the nod. And third, even if neither of those were true--even if--they'd gone and stuck the pokémon most likely to have a direct link to Giovanni right in the middle of their tech and security department. If the mewtwo was some kind of fucked-up familiar like Sword appeared to be, he could be sending Giovanni everything he saw or heard by telepathy. Even if he wasn't, it would be easy enough for the asshole to have stuck some kind of listening device stuck on him, or have set up some kind of psychic link himself. This idea was all-around fucked.

It didn't help to have Rocky strolling along casually beside him, enjoying the evening breeze, while Nate was bounding forward as fast as he could go. He made a point to grumble, just to make it clear that he was pissed off and fucking storming over here, not taking a fucking walk.

Well, one bright side, maybe. All this talk about spies and shit recently, and keeping the mewtwo out here was such a bad idea--maybe he oughta ask whose idea that was, huh? "Hey, Chip?" he called when he'd finally made it down all the lab's fucking stupid stairs. "You got some kind of fucked-up mewtwo thing around here?"

Rocky was already looking around the lab, wondering what weird toys he might find. He brightened, tail lashing excitedly when he found another member of the team already checking things out. "Hey! Look who's here!"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave didn't exactly feel great in the morning, but he was able to string a thought together, and that thought was the fucking parasite.

He downed a glass of dissolved painkiller, hung around on Brisa's advice pacing until it started to kick in just about enough, and then made his way to the lab with her. It wasn't just one, even, two of them. The one from the Mewtwo, too. If they could just work out what the fuck these creatures were and the will driving them...

"Chip?" he called as he entered the lab. "Where are you keeping the parasites? Found out anything?"

 

[Dragonfree]

The strategy meeting had suggested the parasites were pieces of the Eternatus that'd gotten mixed up with Maple, that they functioned like Substitutes. Cool. Great. Info they really could have used before Diyem had killed the parasite that was in Eien, thus sending all that power over to make Soda's parasite even stronger and more corrosive. Fantastic. A+ job, O Wise Leader. Everyone talking in calm, reasoned tones about how Soda couldn't be reasoned with, like he wasn't the only one who'd spoken to him after he got like this, like killing Eien's parasite wouldn't probably be a significant part of the reason why at this point.

And yet he hadn't spoken up about any of it. Just sat there, stewing with hatred for all of these people. What was even the point? Getting more lectures about how yeah they might have to murder him in cold blood and that's just the way it is, too fucking bad?

He made a beeline towards the lab after the meeting was done, jaw clenched, staring forward. What more did Chip have for them? Buffet? Whoever else he got? This had better be fucking great.

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Hey, nerd. I texted you a while ago."

Lexx glanced up from his spot at one of the computers in the lab. He was leaning back in his chair, feet resting on the desk, apparently waiting for a bunch of text on the screen to finish doing something.

He shrugged. "Got wrapped up in my work. You know how it is."

Starr rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Come on, Brisa and Astrid want to try out some high-level skills. The kind of stuff that I need you around for."

Lexx put a hand to his chest. "How about I just hand you my Ultra Stone and we call it good?"

"You're hilarious," Starr replied in a deadpan. "Come on, they're waiting. Bring your nerd shit, you can work on it there."

Lexx sighed dramatically and plugged a cable into his tablet, moving some files onto it. During the wait, Starr let her eyes wander around the lab... and found them drifting toward the cells on the far side of the room, against her better judgement.

"I don't know how you can stand spending so much time in the same room as those things," Starr said with a grimace. "I guess they probably just ignore shades, don't they?"

"Not anymore--watch." Lexx walked over and casually leaned against the barrier as the remaining parasite inside the cell lunged at him. Starr made a look of disgust.

"What, it's not like it can get out," he said, ignoring the thuds on the barrier behind him.

"Not taking any chances," Starr replied flatly, avoiding looking at it. "Which one is that, anyway? Is that the one that got pulled out of Maple, or one of the other ones?"

Lexx raised a finger to answer... and then paused. "Ah. I forgot. Hey Chip, where'd this one come from again?"