Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Namohysip]

Typhlosion and the others seemed less sure about this. Alakazam was the first to understand what was being requested, and they huddled together to speak with one another, aside from Crobat, who was more focused on getting the red paste off of him.

Typhlosion then pointed at Silver, then shook his head, and stepped away with an apologetic bow. 'Not without him,' his eyes said.

It seemed that Silver's team wasn't ready to take on such gigantic threats alone. Perhaps they were still reeling from their past few fights, or they knew how outmatched they were in this one... But they were not ready to fight a battle where they couldn't understand anybody, let alone one where the powers flying around were so far out of their league. They weren't enhanced by Radiance anymore, after all.

 

[Negrek]

Nate nodded. "Yeah, I get it. You don't want to get mixed up in this shit without your trainer." So, really, they needed to focus on getting him to evolve and maybe get some of his memories back. Or at least a bit of his confidence, hopefully. If he was gonna be something big and scary instead of a tiny puffball.

It still sucked that these guys were stuck down here with only that creepy porygon for company. Silver wouldn't even be visiting them anymore. "But, hey. You want to get out of here for a while? How about we grab some food or something?"

 

[Namohysip]

Alakazam translated for them, since it seemed like all this drawing interpretation was starting to confuse Typhlosion and the mentally lazier of the team. Eventually, Typhlosion grunted in approval, and Weavile and Gengar both shrugged. Magnezone seemed to be trying to figure out what Nate had drawn for what his food would be...

At the very least, it looked like they were eager to get some fresh air with company.

 

[Negrek]

(( Magnezone has the battery special, of course! ))

"Yay!" Rocky said. "I was just getting hungry."

"You're always fucking hungry," Nate said, but there was no venom in it. "Great. Let's get going, then. Destiny Village's got lots of nice places for grub. You got any favorites? Well, we'll be able to find something, for sure."

Rocky led the way back to the surface, chattering away the entire time about what he wanted for lunch, while Nate hung back, always checking over his shoulder to be sure Silver's team was following. It was still weird to imagine he was hanging around with some of the most accomplished battlers in the world--his world--well, they weren't exactly the same, but basically. It was some fucking sick joke that he couldn't even talk to them properly.

Well, basically everything that had happened to them and their trainer was a fucking sick joke. But for now, at least, they could at least try to have a good time and not think of all the shit that had brought them here.

<><><>​

 

[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]

"H-hi, Nate! I, um, h-hi..."

Though Nate would not be able to see Chip this time. He was blocked by a much larger creature that stood out against the sterile, white walls of the lab. This one was a great, black behemoth with an aura of electricity about her, and intense, red eyes. She turned and looked down at the Mudkip.

"...Oh! Why, hello there!" Despite the booming volume, her voice was on the higher side, though not without a distinct crackling undertone. Or maybe that was her tail. "You must be Nate! I'm Zekrom, head of the Ethics Commission."

Chip looked like he was awaiting a forced circuit overload.

 

[Negrek]

Nate came to a dead stop, staring up at the dragon. That was... Zekrom? Well, fuck. This was awkward.

"Oooh," Rocky said softy behind him. Yeah, all fucking charged up to meet another legendary pokémon. Meanwhile, all the excess charge in the room was making his skin itch.

"Ah. So you're Zekrom, huh? Chip mentioned you the other day." Nate shot a quick glance at the porygon-Z. Jesus. The guy looked like he was about to bust a circuit or whatever the fuck. "I was hoping I could talk to you, actually. But I can come back, you know. If you're... busy."

 

[Namohysip]

"Oh, not busy at all," Zekrom said with that same cheer. "In fact, we were just through! I've been very happy with Chip keeping his experiments in line. And what he's been finding so far has been so good, too! I heard that you were helping him with some ideas from the human world, too. Something about, ohh, what were they called..."

 

[Negrek]

"Oh. Pokéballs, probably?"

Nate looked back at Rocky, who dutifully pulled the three they had left out of his bag. He held them out for Zekrom to look at if she wanted.

"The ones Chip had before were broken," Nate said, "but these ones still work."

He kept half an eye on Chip. Holy fuck, if this was what the guy got like after a positive meeting with Zekrom, what had it been like all the times she'd told him his ideas were shit?

 

[Namohysip]

"Oh? They actually work?" Zekrom asked, her expression darkening a little. "Interesting... You're from a world that uses these regularly, am I correct? Are they generally safe? Do humans go into them as well?" Zekrom crossed her arms, already asking some very pressing questions immediately. Her aura had changed--less pep, but still energetic. "I understand that the worlds you are from have entirely different rules."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah, people use them all the time where I'm from. They're cheap, and they make it a lot safer to keep pokémon, especially if they're going to be battling a lot. Convenient, too, especially if you've got a pokémon that can't go a lot of places, like if it needs to be in water or something. You can keep it in a pokéball when you've gotta be on dry land. And there are plants that do the same thing, called apricorns. These things are just designed based on those, but easier to make." That was kind of funny, actually. They didn't have apricorns on Cibus, or anywhere else like it? Interesting. "They don't work on humans because humans ain't got infinity energy. That's what makes 'em go."

 

[Namohysip]

"Apricorns?" Zekrom asked, tilting her head. "No, we don't have those, but Arceus did mention those once... He said that they had gone away a long time ago. Before my time, even. How interesting... But what are the implications for that? Can Pokemon escape it on their own... or can it be used for imprisonment?" Zekrom's eyes stared into Nate's, despite the height difference. "A technology like that seems very easy to abuse."

 

[Negrek]

Ah. Well, that was even more strange, if apricorns had been around at one time. You'd think there would still be stories, then, or signs of pokémon having dealt with them before. Maybe they didn't work the same here. Or hadn't. Whatever.

"Pokémon can learn to get out of them, but not all of them do. And some of them you can't open from the inside at all, so yeah, imprisonment's in the cards." Nate smirked. "You ain't wrong about the abuse thing," he said bitterly.

 

[Namohysip]

"Hmm... I see." Zekrom nodded. "It sounds like something we shouldn't be researching, then. It sounds more to me like this is a science best left to human worlds... if that. I don't really know how they would work in our world, and if they wind up bring things for imprisonment... There are simply too many venues to abuse it."

 

[Negrek]

"Well, I dunno," Nate said. "If you figure they're too dangerous to want to make them here, deal with pokémon getting their hands on them, that's your call. You know this shit way better than me. But Giovanni's chucking these around, and obviously he don't give a shit what the ethics commission thinks. If you take a look at them, maybe you can figure out a way to block them, or free a pokémon that's been trapped in one. And they work for defense, too. If a pokémon's been caught with one of these, then nobody can show up and catch them again. Giovanni's been running around nabbing people. Maybe you'd rather make it so he can't, like, just pop in and chuck one of these at Arceus or whoever and then stuff them in one of his corruption machines. And it sure would be handy to toss one of these at Joule up there. Even if he broke out right away, it'd still make his attack fall apart. We can't, 'cause Giovanni got to him first, but that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. His corrupted pokémon don't listen to reason, but if we catch them, we can stop them from running around, blowing shit up until we can let them out somewhere safe, deal with them properly."

Nate took a deep breath. "Anyway. I get it if you think it's all a bad idea. But I think learning more about the things might be important just so you know more about how to deal with them. Who knows, though. Might be hard to do that without also figuring out how to make more and, you know. Whole big can of worms." He waved a hand at nothing in particular. "Risk, reward, and all. I dunno what the right way to go here is. But that's why they don't go putting me in charge of no ethics committees or whatever."

 

[Namohysip]

Despite the wishy-washy pushing Nate was pressing, it did seem like Zekrom was taking what Nate was saying seriously. "That's true," she said. "Researching it for the sake of defending against it... That would be helpful. But we can't ever let this go out to the public... We'd need to keep it top secret, and that isn't very ideal... We should analyze the energy signature first, so we can detect it elsewhere. Chip, can you do that?"

"A-analyze the signal?" Chip asked. "C-certainly! But we'd need test subjects..."

Zekrom frowned.

 

[Negrek]

"Huh. Didn't think pokéballs would put out much signal," Nate said, but he was completely drowned out by Rocky, who immediately stuck his hand in the air.

"Ooh, me! Pick me! I want to be a test subject."

Nate shot him a brief look of irritation. "What about Silver's pokémon? They all got pokéballs, and they must be pretty used to getting recalled and sent out again and all that." He tapped a couple fingers against the floor. "I guess it might be kind of hard to explain to them what was going on with it, though."

"Well, you should still have more," Rocky said hopefully. "Only six, that's, uh, they call that a sample, a... too small number?"

"And you can stick that guy in a ball if you want, too, I guess."

Rocky grinned. "Yesssss."

 

[Namohysip]

"That's true. We can recall them into those..." Zekrom nodded. "Well! I suppose if you're looking for a bit of experimenting and we have enough willing volunteers, we can try to at least analyze its properties..." She looked back at Silver's team. "They've been a little restless lately, poor guys... I hope Silver wakes up soon."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah," Nate said, following Zekrom's gaze over to where Silver's team were watching. "Can't blame 'em. I mean, they're pretty alone out here. Don't even speak the language or nothing. Speaking of that." He turned his attention back to Zekrom. "Last time I was here, Chip mentioned something called a joy ribbon. Lets you learn from other people's battles without fighting them yourself? You got any idea where I might find one of those?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Oh! Of course. Here, let me jot down an address for you; there should be one right here in Destiny Village. A lot of valuable wares are down in the commercial district, actually... Top-notch materials, too!" Zekrom handed Nate the note. Her handwriting was a little flowery, but not overabundantly so. It was surprising from someone so large, though.