Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Negrek]

Oh. Well, that was convenient. At least he wouldn't need to bother Maple about this kind of shit when they had way bigger things to worry about. "Thanks. I'll go grab one of these, then... See if we can get Silver to evolve a bit faster, wake up for his team and all that, huh? Since he can't exactly fight on his own."

Nate passed the note up to Rocky, who seemed amused by Zekrom's handwriting.

"Anyway... That takes care of the pokéball stuff. Might help us in the future, but it can't do a ton against Joule. Like I said, these won't work on him. But earlier Chip was telling me about something that might. Some kinda laser thing he was using to make holes on the moon? Sounds like it might help out here. We could try aiming that at the big attack Joule's got going, blow it up before it can actually hit the city. Or at him, I guess, if we thought we had to."

 

[Namohysip]

Zekrom's eyes darkened a little. "Chip, what were you referring to?" she asked.

"Um! Nothing! Nothing at all! Just, um, talking about random ideas, i-is all I was talking about, h-haha... ha..." Chip seemed to be looking for an escape route.

"...If he was talking about the Tree of Life, using its energy irresponsibly is... dangerous. We might need it for something else later. Still... that is true. If we used it against that ball, we could knock it free... But we don't have time to do that now... And once you start battling Joule, I don't think we would be able to aim it properly. It's practically across the whole world."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah, I had a feeling that was part of why you weren't too hot on that one. Plus maybe not liking giving the moon a makeover. But, I mean, if you've got all that power there, and you're saving it for a rainy day, end-of-the-world sort of situation, how much more end-of-the-worldy are you expecting it to get than possibly half the planet getting blown away, you know?" Nate rubbed at the side of his head. "Don't think I follow, though. How's it going to be harder to aim once the battle starts? You mean like you're worried you'd hit someone fighting Joule instead of the big scary ball of death?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Well--yes. Joule is going to be sent to the Reverse World for this fight, from what I've heard, to help dull that Blacklight power. I'm not sure if they're developing a strategy beyond that, but you can ask the rest of your team on the details." Zekrom hummed. "But the other problem is I don't think we can aim a Tree of Life beam from there to here without transporting Joule to the Tree of Life itself. And that's... also a risk."

"Didn't Arceus say he had a plan as long as Team Spectrum handled Joule himself?" Chip asked.

 

[Negrek]

"Wait, what? Why the fuck didn't nobody say shit about this Reverse World whatever?" Nate's hand unconsciously went to the badge pinned to his scarf. He had to sit through all the team's stupid chatter, and then they couldn't be assed to mention if there was something actually important going down? Thanks, assholes. "Anyway, look, I'm just trying to figure out options here. I can go ask Arceus about his plan later. I ain't getting it, though. If you can hit the moon with it, why can't you hit something halfway across the world? Loads closer, right?"

"Well, you can see the moon from here," Rocky said. "I bet that makes it easier to aim at."

Nate gave him a withering look. "I don't think 'point it at the big glowy thing' is actually how you aim if you're trying to hit the fucking moon."

 

[Namohysip]

"Actually, your friend is right," Zekrom said, frowning. "The moon is in the sky, and the laser is linear. We'd have to shoot through a quarter of the planet to reach Joule."

"Hnnzzz, you aren't one of those 'Cibus is flat' types, are you?" Chip asked Nate, buzzing.

"...Now that I think about it, we aren't really even sure if Joule would nullify that energy, too," Zekrom added.

 

[Negrek]

Nate glared at Chip. "No. But where I'm from people got ways of dealing with the fact that the earth is round. If your thing can't do that, fine, that's why you fucking ask." God, this Reverse World thing was pissing him the fuck off. And the fact that Rocky was giving him a look was pissing him off even more. Nate squeezed his eyes closed for a second and tried to think. "Right. Whatever. Won't work, fine. I'll talk to Arceus. The thing I was wondering is..." He focused on Zekrom. "The Tree of Life, then. You think it's something okay to use for this? If we thought of something that needed it? Or no?"

 

[Namohysip]

"If it's absolutely needed... You'd have to ask Xerneas if it's okay. But there are still a lot of risks involved, like whether this energy would be nullified, or even absorbed by Joule. We only have one decent shot if we do..." Zekrom nodded. "But it is an option, if we can find some way to aim it at Joule. But it may also... fail... If only we had more time to test it. But time is the one thing we no longer have."

 

[Negrek]

Nate waved a hand. "Forget the laser. Sounds like it ain't gonna work. But there might be other things we can do with all that power." If that wasn't already a part of Arceus' mysterious plan. "Thanks, anyway. I guess we'll talk to Xerneas if we need to. Good to know it ain't unethical as shit, anyhow. And thanks"--he jerked his head in Rocky's direction--"for the other tip, too."

 

[Namohysip]

Zekrom nodded. "You take care," she said, smiling. "And thank you for the human insight as well, Nate. You may not be the same as the other humans that have visited this world, but... there's still something about your kind that I can appreciate."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah?" Nate said. "You do you, I guess." He looked back over at Silver's team, hesitating for a moment. But no. Fuck it. "Come on, we got shit to do," he growled at Rocky, and stalked back towards the stairs.

Rocky called after him, ears pinned back, "Wait, but don't you want to--?"

"I said come on!"

<><><>​

 

[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.

 

[Negrek]

"The Dark Matter that sent us here was hanging out in the infirmary with you for a while," Nate told Silver. "Apparently he fucking misplaced a few members of the team and has been barfing them up lately. Anyhow. Chip, you remember Silver. You were there when he evolved last time, and now he's awake again. We want to take a look at the moon. You got any telescopes around here?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Wait, you can't just blow past that," Silver said, floating a little higher. "Your Dark Matter is what?"

"I was surprised, too! But telescopes? I have one. Not the best in the world, though. If you want, we can pick up a call with Jirachi at the Expedition Society and see what he sees, though. If it's Blacklight-related, I'm sure he'll be able to do something for you."

"Something basic might be fine for now," Silver said. "We just have to look at the moon."

 

[Negrek]

"Thanks, Chip. Like he said, might as well start with what you've got on hand," Nate said.

As for the lunala himself... "Well, me and the rest of the team were sent here by a Dark Matter, right? One that was chilling in another world. But shit went down, Giovanni grabbed him for a bit, and then we busted him out again a few weeks back. He lost a lot of his power, and apparently there were some people he meant to send down to Cibus but didn't get a chance to give bodies to before he got captured. And now he's got, like, evil indigestion, I guess. You'll probably see them out and about and shit." Nate gave Silver a shrewd look. "Do you, ah... know about Dark Matter? We ain't got one in my world, dunno about yours."

 

[Namohysip]

"We don't, no," Silver said as Chip flew into another room. "All of this mystic nonsense is new to me. It feels like this world doesn't operate under the same rules as we do at all. Then again... the creator of that world happens to be our neighbor, so maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle."

"Here we are!" Chip flew in, tugging a great telescope behind him, made of metal and mirrors. It didn't look like anything advanced by human standards, but it would get the job done as far as simply looking at the moon was concerned. "We have an adapter for different, uh, head sizes, so if you'd like to take a look..."

Chip was already asking for help moving it outside.

 

[Negrek]

"Mystic nonsense is right. Shit definitely don't work the same around here as it does back home." Nate tilted his head. "What do you mean about the creator being your neighbor, though?"

To Chip he said, "There ain't much I can do to move that thing, but if you got any smaller bits that need carrying, I can help with that."

 

[Namohysip]

"Well, Pop. Apparently we were in the same infirmary room for a little while."

After getting the telescope set up, and apparently missing a few pieces that Chip had left behind in the other room, he positioned the lens toward the moon.

"You start first," Chip said to Nate. "I need to find a bigger eyepiece for, uhhh..." Chip looked at Silver, then floated off.

 

[Negrek]

"Ah, yeah. He was in there for a while with you." Not quite what Nate thought he'd been getting at. So no Dark Matter in his world, huh? But he seemed to know what it was well enough. Was what he'd been talking about in his sleep something he'd remember now, or some of his "lost" memories bubbling up somehow?

"Thanks, Chip," Nate said once the porygon had gotten the telescope set up. It took hauling himself up onto a nearby stool to reach the eyepiece, but Nate did his best to clamber up without jostling the telescope itself. He squinted one eye, peering through the device...

 

[Namohysip]

Now that Nate could look at the moon and through the telescope, he could see a little better the details of its surface. The craters were a little different and the color just slightly whiter, but it was indeed a moon not unlike the moons of so many other worlds of Team Spectrum's homelands.

Except one crater didn't look like it was the same as the others. Near the bottom and to the left was a black circle with a white aura. It was hard to judge how big the moon was in this world... but if it was anything like other moons, this crater, just a dot, must have been several tens of miles across.