Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Namohysip]

"I'm afraid we don't know what attacked us specifically. It happened so quickly that most of my team had been knocked out in the middle of our travel to this world. It was in transit, right at the edge of this reality, that we were attacked. It happened..." Maple frowned, looking at them. "Not long before you all arrived."

...Hm. Then that is why she was suspicious of us, in part.

"It was something powerful. Something with great, dark powers. And..." Maple looked down. "Something strong enough that it was able to separate us from our co-leader... and my... partner."

Partner... If I had to guess--

"Another world traveler. The one who, combined with my power of Life, can grant abilities far beyond what a normal Pokemon is capable of. The Radiance you are all familiar with is a combination of Light and Life. He is the same kind as your Bahamut, a Dragon of light."

Then it all falls together, Diyem said, and his annoyed smirk was practically audible. A Voice of Life and a Necrozma working together. Yet we do not know where the latter has gone...

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr looked unimpressed. "Another Necrozma, huh. Well, our Necromza was pretty interested in Cosmog, and it turns out he's human, and he might be from the same world that all this Rocket shit came from. So I'm thinking we wanna talk to him asap." Any excuse to get the hell away from Maple.

 

[Namohysip]

"...The Cosmog is human. Right..." Maple narrowed her eyes, thoughtful. "Could he be the... Hmm. Well. Humans are typically found in the time of crisis... But Buffet would have told us about that." She frowned. "Yes. Perhaps investigating him would b a good idea. I have a few other things to look into." Then, after a pause, she nodded to them. "Thank you all for your help. We have more information to work with. If we find more, we will tell you."

 

[Persephone]

Cuicatl’s eye would have twitched if she still had eyes. The one time she decides to be helpful and she’s entirely ignored. In favor of Starr. Who she still wasn’t entirely sure wasn’t with Team Rocket, or whatever they were called.

She turned around and left without saying a word.

They wouldn’t have listened to it, anyway.

 

[Adamhuarts]

"Huh, where did Cuicatl go?" Cynthian muttered to himself upon noticing her absence. How strange.

"Thank you all for your help. We have more information to work with. If we find more, we will tell you."

We're not doing it because of you, was what Cynthian wanted to say, but his survival instincts warned him against doing that.

"Looks like we're done here now. I'll be taking my leave. See you around, Nip and Starr," Cynthian said as he shuffled his way out of the laboratory.

 

[Namohysip]

With their investigations complete, the group disbanded, though Maple lingered behind to speak to Chip. "Was there anything else that you saw from these scraps?"

"No. But I'll look harder now that we know for sure it's human!"

"Mm. Thank you, Chip. Continue your research, but try not to get too reckless about it."

Chip didn't seem to hear her and was already buzzing at a few of the larger pieces of scrap. Maple sighed and slipped through a portal.

<><><>​

 

[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..."

 

[Chibi Pika]

A shadowy Zeraora with glowing yellow stripes hummed to himself as he walked in through the sliding-door entrance to the research facility. His eyes were glued to the tablet that he'd borrowed and then never returned. Connecting it to the same network that the rest of Team Spectrum used to communicate hadn't been too hard, though it had required borrowing Starr's badge when she wasn't paying attention. (And she hadn't noticed, so it was fine.)

Man the groupchat was in an uproar today. First the guild getting nuked and then Sword getting stolen and then rumors of a spy, and Maple's badge getting hacked? And that was without even getting into all the Team Rocket stuff that Starr refused to talk about. Sure, he'd hatched with a decent amount of knowledge--everything he really could have gotten about the team, and his other self--from her memories. But he wanted to know more. Plus he'd been meaning to take a closer look at that Rocket tech the team had recovered from the Isle of Light...

Lexx raised a paw to greet Chip as he entered the lab. "'Sup?" Then he noticed that the Porygon-Z's mannerisms were a bit more erratic than usual. "Some day, innit?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Hello, Lexx..." Chip's disembodied limbs lowered sadly. "This might be the last time you see me. I'm done for. Put a fork in me. Reshiram's going to turn me into a code-based oven roast..." He chirped sadly in binary, then looked at him. "Here to look at more of the Rocket tech? You probably won't find anything all that new... Hey, do you know anything about hijacking or impersonating signals over long-range communication? Your host is from one of those tech human worlds..."

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Ahh, sorry to hear that," Lexx said, pretending to wipe away a tear. "Well, the other me was great at that stuff! Unfortunately, my sis was never into all that, so I didn't hatch with the know-how. But it just means I've had to work twice as fast to catch up to where I'm supposed to be," he added with a wink.

The Zeraora scrolled through the textbooks he'd downloaded onto his tablet. He was pretty sure he'd seen one on wireless transmissions, though a lot of it had blended together with sheer amount he'd been reading lately. "So, lemme get caught up," he said, talking as he read, "those badges--they each put out a unique signal, yeah? Shouldn't normally be possible to intercept 'em... that have something to do with how they're received, or...?"

 

[Namohysip]

"They do," Chip said. "Every badge sends out a unique signal that identifies who is sending it. That same signal is what's used to return a message back to the recipient. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to send a message back. So what would be the point?!" He raised his limbs up.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lexx crossed an arm behind his head while continuing to scroll with his other paw holding the tablet. "Mmm, right. I don't suppose it'd be easier to duplicate the signal if someone had got their hands on Maple's badge directly at one point? Course, that'd prob'ly be hard enough as is."

 

[Namohysip]

"That's possible, but... Who would possibly have contact with Maple in a way that they would borrow her badge? That'd give them away immediately..."

Heavy footsteps echoed from outside. It seemed someone was coming, and Chip looked about ten times more afraid.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lexx nodded distantly. "Hmm, well, isn't there some buzz about a traitor and whatnot? Someone who had her trust, sounds like?"

But Chip didn't answer--he'd suddenly gone paralyzed with fear. Lexx flicked an ear toward the door. "Oh cool, that the boss-man?"

 

[Namohysip]

This Legend had pure, white fur, two legs, and wings that doubled, in a sense, as arms. He was somewhere between a bird and a dragon, though mostly the latter, with a tail that radiated a great heat and white fur that resembled pure smoke coming out the end.

Reshiram, the Dragon of Truth. His piercing blue eyes locked onto Chip, who looked ready to reregister his own code to avoid speaking to him.

"Let's look into the logs," Reshiram said. His voice was deep and formal, but there wasn't any malice behind it. Businesslike. He strode through the white halls, past Lexx and Chip, and down the left entryway.

Chip fainted, clattering on the ground.

Reshiram glanced back. "Is he all right?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

So this was Reshiram. Always a treat to meet a new Legend. Especially one that didn't have all that much cultural significance back in Tohjo, where all the memories he'd gotten from Starr were from.

Reshiram glanced back. "Is he all right?"

Lexx waved a paw dismissively. "Ahh, he's just overwhelmed. Lotta crap went down today, it's a lot to process." He sidled in through the left entryway after Reshiram did, curious what the dragon would find.

 

[Namohysip]

It wasn't much. It was a small platform that Reshiram waved his wing over. After a pause, a flickering hologram appeared that looked like a user interface, which he then poked through to grab several files, programs, and icons. He had mail. 327 pieces of mail, in fact. He didn't open that icon and instead searched through his files, pulling something else up, filled with jumbles of text and code that it seemed even Diyem had trouble translating.

Chip quietly collected himself and floated along with them. "So, um... R-Reshiram... I, there's no way I--I'm very sorry if this was an error in our--in my work, or..."

"There's no need to place blame for now," Reshiram said. "Right now we need to look into the core issue. Maple already gave me access to the signal logs and given that they operate on a special, military network, we have more information than usual."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lexx peeked around Reshiram's expansive floof, trying to get a better look at the screen. "Military network? That just for the God Squad's badges, or...?"

 

[Namohysip]

"There are two different networks that we operate under," Reshiram explained. "The civilian network and the military network. You, God Squad, and high-rank Guild members around the world are part of the military network, or have access to it. The network operates under a completely different encryption and system than the civilian network and has more logging, but is also more difficult to intercept. That first part is what I'm looking through now..."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Ah, so even the regular members of Team Spectrum had access to the military network, not just the God Squad. Good to know. He wondered if that other version of him could've cracked it, if he were here. Well, it would've been hard enough with the whole translation thing. Fun challenge, though.

Lexx glanced over at the still-cowering Porygon-Z and flashed a grin. "No worries, I'm sure he'll find where the breach happened."