Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Namohysip]

"I guess so..." Chip sighed.

"Ahh, here we go. We need to check things like this. There's a log here of a received message from Maple, but there is no log of Maple sending a message. An impersonation. We never put code to check for this..." Reshiram sighed, rubbing his head. "I suppose we assumed it was secure enough on its own with the identification. This will impact performance, but if we patch it over... they shouldn't be able to impersonate messages the same way again. Or at least, not without the system detecting it and sending a warning."

The white dragon looked back to Chip. "Did you get that? I'll be sure to write a user story for it immediately. This will be high priority."

"S-sir!" Chip saluted to the best of his ability.

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Ey, seems like it'll all work out then," Lexx said, clapping a paw to Chip's shoulder... or whatever you called the top part of his arm segments.

That just left the question of how they copied the identification in the first place. Borrowing the badge was the easiest, explanation, but...

"Say, random question--do sent messages include location data?"

 

[Namohysip]

Reshiram paused, then looked at the logs. "...Hmm, interesting... These unmatched messages don't have proper location data, either. It's set to the middle of the Sea of Wonders--the default zero-zero coordinate. It's what's assumed if it isn't able to find the location properly."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lexx's eyes lits up as he moved closer to the screen. Now that was interesting. "Y'know, I was half expecting them to have put fake coordinates just to throw us off. Get us to think we've found 'em, that sort of deal. Actually, hang on... what method does Cibus use to relay the badge signals long-distance, anyhow? You guys got towers as waypoints or something like that?"

 

[Namohysip]

"We tried towers for a little while," Reshiram said. "But they weren't very pretty, you know. It didn't take long for us to look into better technology. Compact, underground, that sort of thing... We used similar technology to Entercards, actually. Artificial Dungeon pathways that can be harnessed from one location to another. Not quite the same, but it does involve minute energy transfer. Much easier to manage compared to materials like Waypoints and warp tiles."

"I'm not really the expert on that part," Chip added. "The Entercard pioneers are all the way on the Mist Continent."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lexx grinned broadly. "Dungeons as transmission paths--oh, that's cool. I should've figured it would be something that doesn't exist back in the human world." He'd definitely need to read up on that later. "Guess my next question is, is there any record of which paths were used to relay any given transmission? Y'know, to narrow it down a bit?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Hmm, that will take some time," Reshiram said. "But you have a good point. If we can trace through those logs, we may find something..."

"You mean, where they had been sent?" Chip asked. "How can we be sure where they're from?"

"We can't, but it will be a better chance than flying in the dark," Reshiram said. "With another piece of evidence or two, we could pool more resources into specific locations to disrupt their operations, or perhaps even orchestrate an assault..."

Vrrrrrrmmm...

"...Apologies," Reshiram said as the glowing hum of his tail cooled down. "It happens when I'm excited."

 

[Chibi Pika]

"No worries--it's worth getting excited over," Lexx said cheerfully. The first major puzzle to solve since he'd hatched! Sure, it was only happening because there'd been a major disaster, but eh... details. Maybe it wouldn't be long before he'd be allowed to work with the data directly (what kind of clearance did that require, anyway?) In the meantime, he still had a lot of reading to catch up on. It felt like he barely knew anything compared to what he was supposed to. And he'd been meaning to read that report on how Pokéballs worked too, but that would have to wait...

 

[Negrek]

Nate still wasn't feeling the best, but Rocky kept telling him he needed to rest and not do anything else dumb, so now here he was, dragging his ass up the big fucking hill at the edge of town to the lab where he'd brought the Rocket shit from the Isle of Light earlier. He'd been meaning to see what the porygon guy had figured out about the stuff, and with everything Maple'd been talking about on top of that, and now all this badge shit... Yeah, he was more than overdue for a visit.

Inside the suspiciously tiny lab building, Nate found himself at the top of a set of stairs leading down. He scowled. Just what he needed right now, more scientist bullshit. Were they all, like, cave-dwellers or some shit?

At the bottom of the stairs was your usual assortment of tech bullshit, lots of screens and all that shit. Rocky was cooing over it, finding it ever-so-fucking-interesting, and Nate did his best to ignore him and focus on the actual reason they were there. There was that porygon-Z, okay, and that was... one of the familiars? There were two of them like that, whatever exactly they were. But much more importantly, who the fuck was the huge white guy taking up practically half the room? Something pinged Nate as vaguely familiar, so it was probably some legend or other, sacred to whoever the fuck. Nate wondered when they'd finally start running out of the fucking pantheon. He squinted and forged his way forward against the waves of heat coming off the legend's tail... thing. "What the fuck is going on in here?" he croaked.

 

[Namohysip]

Chip cringed. "N-not in front of Reshiram!" he squeaked.

"It's all right," Reshiram said, glancing back so his blue eye could meet Nate's. "Ah, and you're Nate. Well met. I am Reshiram, Dragon of Truth, inventor of the various whosits and whatsits that most civilians use nowadays. Or at least, the basics. Mortal ingenuity tends to improve on my discoveries very quickly. Staggering, really."

Despite his rambling, he was already back to work on whatever logs he was reading. He seemed preoccupied...

"What's going on out here?" called a new, small voice on the opposite side of the hall. Out came Cosmog, who still often did not realize he was being called if one said 'Silver.' There were little bits of embers and smoke wafting off from his head, and there seemed to be some poison mixed in with his left pompom.

Typhlosion and Crobat, looking guilty, skulked about in the other room, which looked like it had been converted into a living area for Silver's team.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Oh cool, new arrivals. First the resident antisocial Mudkip--Nate, was it? Human, came from a similar world... and that was about all he'd heard. Not much chatter about him compared to the rest. Oh, and if it wasn't Silver. Lexx had heard about him from Starr, of course. Their alternate universe-brother, united in unfortunate parentage (a fact that had become increasingly relevant recently).

"We've just been looking into that security breach," Lexx explained, waving to them. Then he cocked his head at the smouldering bits of Silver's gaseous form and said, "Having some fun with your team?"

 

[Negrek]

Well, "Reshiram" sounded like someone to talk to, but Nate was distracted by the appearance of a clot of purple clouds. It was so unexpected that Silver would be here that it took Nate a moment to recognize him, but the typhlosion and crobat pretty much confirmed who it had to be.

"Oh, hey," Nate said. "How's it going? This where you're hanging out these days?" He leaned over a bit, trying to get a better view into the other room. "How's the team?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Having some fun with your team?"

"How's the team?"

"Hmph... They're fine. They're getting along with each other and don't really need me for that." Cosmog shook out the last of the toxic sludge. The embers went out on their own. "I still don't feel that... connection that humans are apparently supposed to share with their team. It's just not there. I can't even remember what their names are, or if I gave them names at all. There's just..." Cosmog looked like he was trying, really trying, to find something. But then, deflating, he finished. "There's just nothing."

 

[Negrek]

"Yeah, well," Nate said, glancing uneasily around at the strange pokémon hanging around the lab. Just what they needed, an audience, "knowing Giovanni, that's the first sort of thing he'd want to take from you. So it ain't no surprise it's gone. Still sucks, though." He looked away and cleared his throat. "I guess you've been getting a bit of that battle training in, though. You know, with all the..." He gestured vaguely at his head.

Rocky giggled. "Your head was on fire!"

 

[Namohysip]

Somehow, it looked like the flame had reignited. "Sure, battle training. That's what happened." He drifted further away from the room until Typhlosion and the others were out of earshot. "I'm just tired. I've been tired all day. What even happened outside?"

 

[Negrek]

Ah. So it was like that, was it? Nate should probably try to the pokémon, too, if he got the chance. "You been down here a while, then?" Nate asked. "Missed all the excitement?"

"Giovanni was here," Rocky said softly.

"Yeah. He's been ganking pokémon and turning them all shadowy for a while now, but last fight we had he was able to use some kinda device to turn one of them into this Eternatus thing. Like, five head finger things, slave to his will, all that, real freaky shit. After we won he showed up around here and started blowing shit up, I guess to set a trap for us." And why had he done that, exactly? If they'd all stayed together near that spring place, would he have left everyone alone? "Ended up swiping the pokémon with the Eternatus thing going on and fucking off somewhere."

"There was another mewtwo, too! He was being held prisoner at the guild here, but then he broke out to go fight Giovanni!" Rocky said.

"And one of them showed up here, right?" Nate asked, looking around for the porygon-Z. "What was up with that?"

While Silver was distracted by the news, Rocky helpfully blew out the flame on his head, like he was a candle.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Ah, yes. Giovanni, in Destiny Village. His memories of the Giovanni from back on earth were strange, filtered through a perspective that wasn't his. Starr may have wanted to excuse herself from the area every time Giovanni showed up, but Lexx? Lexx was dying to know more about what he was doing here and what his plans were.

"When you say one of the Mewtwo showed up at the lab, which one do you mean? Giovanni or Karat?"

 

[Namohysip]

Silver glared at Rocky, but didn't tell him to go away. Perhaps that was his own way of thanks.

"Oh, Karat broke out of the Guild during a moment of weakness in security, but we still aren't sure how all those protections were lowered to begin with. It might have to do with, you know"--Chip lowered his voice--"the spy. Whoever they are. Karat attacked me on reflex... You know how Mewtwo are, once they get in that battle mode there's no stopping 'em, I guess. But I was fine once I got my head back on my shoulders."

 

[Negrek]

So it was Karat for sure, if the porygon-Z had seen him actually break out. "So he wasn't actually going for the lab, huh? You just went to say hi and he blew your head off your shoulders?" Nate cast a sidelong look at Rocky, who was watching intently to see if Silver's head would flare up again. Well, those two were getting along like oil and water. "What was Karat doing, then? Trying to get away, or just flying around, blowing shit up?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Lexx put a paw to his chin. "Hm. If Karat took off to confront Giovanni the instant security went down... it's a bit hard to imagine ol' Gio's spy was intending for their boss to face even more resistance. Could've just been an unintended side effect." He paused, mouth curling upward slightly. "...Unless you think they were hoping to set a trap for Karat?"