Sand Continent ~ Isle of Light

[Negrek]

(( lmao, oh noooo, Cabot D: ))

Nate coughed and raised an arm to shield himself from the sand and debris that went flying when Darkwhite started drilling into the scree. Well, that worked, more or less. "Great. Let's hope there's something cool under there," he said.

Nate spread out one of the nets and started piling other items on top of it. Whatever shit hadn't been busted by the explosion probably got broken by the drill, but it might still be useful. The element dampers especially were probably something that porygon guy would want to take a look at. "I thought Giovanni was mostly by himself, like, him and some pokémon he'd snagged. But all this shit... There must be a lot more Rockets running around than I thought."

He looked over at the chikorita and the hazy, glowing charmander. "Can you give me a hand with this shit? I dunno if I'm gonna be able to drag it all out of here by myself."

 

[Cresselia92]

"... Huh, it does. But how can that be? The only other Necrozma we know is Joule, and I doubt parts of his body just randomly fell off and were left here."

“Unless those are the remains of someone who belongs to the same species as Sir Bahamut and Sir Joule?” wondered Icetales, sketching the details of that crystal cluster as accurately as he could. “After all, both our common acquaintances belong to different worlds, so… perhaps these crystals belong to the Necrozma of this world?”

He shrugged and kept sketching. “It is not like this world hasn’t spawned countless clones of clones. I have seen more ice Vulpix here than in the entirety of my lifetime in my own world, and I am in my 70’s.”

 

[Namohysip]

"Sure," Cal said, gathering what she could. "But y'know, I'm seeing a lot of tech but not a lot of human stuff, if that makes sense. Like, I dunno, a coat, or a shirt, or stuff humans pollute the places they live with." She looked around. "No idea where all this technology is coming from, though... It had to have been created somehow, right?"

It didn't take long for them to gather everything they could.

--

Owen sputtered. "You're seventy?" he said. "Wow, that's... I guess in your world, those legends about long lifespans are true..." He looked over the crystals a little more, then said, "S'more told us that this world doesn't have a Necrozma. And Bahamut's with us, but... I think we might want to go with the simple answer here." He looked back. "Do you think Maple might know for sure?"

 

[IFBench]

"Sure!" Saltriv said, piling a few more random tech objects onto the net with their vines, before wrapping them around some of the holes in the net. They began to walk out of the hole, slowly tugging the net along with them.

As they did so, their smile wavered briefly. What could these things be? Did they have anything to do with what happened with Rayquaza?

 

[Virgil134]

Cabot frowned a bit at Icetales' comment about being in his 70's, but opted not to comment on it as Owen already said what he was thinking.

"Well, there's only one way to find out" the Cranidos replied. "Though maybe we should see what's behind these other doors before we go back and tell her."

 

[Negrek]

(( owen no don't make maple identify her boyfriend's corpse ))

"Thanks," Nate said as the chikorita started dragging the goods back though the hole. Nate fell in and pushed from the other side. Glancing back at Cal, he said, "Yeah, I was thinking you couldn't have no humans in this world, but I guess I dunno if that's true. If the whole squad got zapped into pokémon, then I wouldn't expect to find clothes and shit lying around anyway. But yeah, all this probably has to be coming in from somewhere else. Unless they've got a little factory down in here, too." Nate frowned, throwing his shoulder against the bundle of junk to shove it over a particularly troublesome bump. "I thought Owen was from one of those worlds without humans," he said. The "world without humans" thing was never going to stop being fucking creepy. "How the fuck do you even know what a coat is?"

Back in the hallway, Nate set Rocky down on the floor. The golden ring around the shade-stone flashed once, twice, and then dark haze poured out of the stone, taking the shape of an infernape. "We found a lot of neat stuff!" Rocky said, gathering the net full of junk up in his arms.

"Stealth mission, remember?" Nate said. Rocky put a finger to his lips and then grinned hugely--and silently. Real fucking convenient. Maybe every day could be a "stealth mission" from now on.

"Well, what do you think? We want to investigate the big room while we're here, or go catch up with the others?" Nate asked the others. "I kinda want to see the big room, myself."

 

[IFBench]

Thanks," Nate said as the chikorita started dragging the goods back though the hole.

"No problem!" Saltriv replied to Nate, as they dragged the net out of the hole.

"But yeah, all this probably has to be coming in from somewhere else. Unless they've got a little factory down in here, too."

"Maybe it came from the human world?" they suggested. This world did have a human world, right?

"Well, what do you think? We want to investigate the big room while we're here, or go catch up with the others?" Nate asked the others. "I kinda want to see the big room, myself."

Saltriv tilted their head for a few seconds, then said, "Let's leave this with Maple, and check out the big room!"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Luz sauntered around the hideout, fascinated. This was all totally unconceived of in Brisa's world, and though she'd been born to Cibus, all her memories were of a world where technology was a long way behind it...

"What I wanna know is, do these folks have a reliable means of gettin' back 'n' forth between worlds, or were they stuck here? Did they send this construction havin' fabricated it in their world, or make it on site? 'Cause that'll make one heck of a difference."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Did they send this construction havin' fabricated it in their world, or make it on site? 'Cause that'll make one heck of a difference.

"When Astrid and I checked out the human ruins on the air continent, the story was that their laboratory had crossed over with them. It is quite possible that this building could've crossed over with them." Of course, Celeste felt that the mere possibility of any building crossing a dimension should be absurd, but that kind of logic didn't apply here. He'd witnessed evidence that it could be done with his own eyes.

 

[Namohysip]

"How the fuck do you even know what a coat is?"

"I mean, Owen knows what a coat is, so I know what a coat is." Cal shrugged. "It's not rocket science."

--

Darkwhite was the last to emerge from the caved-in tunnel, but with it, she said, "I found one last cool thing! But it isn't like the rest of it at all!" She tossed out what appeared to be a large bone. The shape and markings on it suggested regular use as a weapon. Any Pokemon expert would identify it as a Marowak's weapon of choice.

"Oh well. Let's go see that big room now!"

--

"Right, there's one more room to investigate," Owen said, looking back at the crystals, then at the broken chamber. "You guys can gather those if you want for now. I'm going to try not to get overwhelmed in that place..."

Soda had already entered the room, and had his hands behind his back, looking over the walls and machines. "Must be some kind of server room," he mumbled to himself. "Data stuff and junk... But there are other things in the back, too. I'm getting some weird vibes with it..."

 

[Virgil134]

"Server room...?" Pleo asked, tilting his head. "Aren't servers those Pokémon that give you food at restaurants?"

Meanwhile, Cabot went over to one of the closed doors and tried to open it.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Hey, hey, y'all. Don't we know of a marowak who'd think t'come here and sort this out? Most experienced hero in the known world?"

Luz spread her arms wide. "If Bone came here, with or without her team, she coulda got in trouble! Wouldn't be the first time Cibus heroes have done somethin' to that effect. She could still be here."

 

[Namohysip]

"Bone... That's right." Owen looked to Wishkeeper, but he shook his head. "We aren't finding any organic bodies under the rubble or anything, though. So, if she's in trouble, she escaped..."

"Unless she was captured in one of those Poke Balls," Cal said. "Owen can't tell what's inside those."

"I didn't really see any of those, either," Owen added. "Aside from that big room. We haven't checked there yet..."

"Did you find anything else in the other room?" Maple asked. It seemed that the other, closed rooms had little or nothing of interest--certainly nothing that Nate had already gathered in the destroyed hall.

"I ain't tellin' her," Soda murmured to the others.

Maple didn't seem to hear him.

Something rumbled in the large room...

 

[Cresselia92]

Owen sputtered. "You're seventy?" he said. "Wow, that's... I guess in your world, those legends about long lifespans are true..."

“Truer that truth itself, good sir, and I am merely a youngster. One of the blessings bestowed by Sir Jirachi himself, but that is a discussion for another time.”

He noticed the surprise on Cabot’s face and grinned sheepishly — it always felt weird seeing getting those reactions from most folks whenever he mentioned his age.

However, it was time to get back to the situation itself. So, there was something about servers and gathering data… whatever that meant. A human thing, apparently, which meant that they had to confer with the humans on the team. Wait…

“Isn’t Sir Nate a former human? At least, I had heard mentions of that,” said Icetales, rubbing his chin with a tail. “Perhaps we could ask him if he knows something about this?”

And then, the loud rumble. Icetales blinked and turned toward the door, his tails starting to get cloaked in a thin mist. “W-what was that?”

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Celeste jumped back and redoubled his radiant vision. "What's going on?"

Distracted as he was, he didn't notice the shift in his voice.

 

[IFBench]

Saltriv tensed up, as they heard the rumbling. What could that have been? It sounded like it was coming from...

They retracted their vines from the net, and ran towards the big room. "This way!" they shouted.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Luz counted off a pawful of reasons in favour, respectively, of collecting all the crystal parts versus following the posse into the large room.

She decided on a compromise, taking the smallest crystal piece in a flash and hurrying back out to accompany her allies for a potential scuffle.

 

[Negrek]

"Huh," was all Nate said to the charmander familiar, but fucking file that one away for later. "Owen knows what a coat is" didn't exactly explain how Owen knew what a coat was.

Not fucking important. Who cared if the charmander was being weird about his backstory, especially when there were things like a fucking outworld Rocket base to worry about. "Yeah, I figure it's probably from the human world," he said to the chikorita. "Question is, how did they get it all over here?"

The marowak's bone was a particularly grim find, though. Nate started to go forward and inspect it more closely, but a rumbling from the large room made it clear that was better saved for later. The chikorita charged off immediately, but Nate was frozen. Here they were in the fucking Rocket base, and what was the last Rocket-y thing they'd seen that rumbled like that? Rocky looked over at him in alarm.

"Wait! Be careful, goddammit!" he yelled, but then what else was there to do but run after the guy and make sure they didn't get themself shadowed?

 

[Namohysip]

When they entered the main server room, or whatever it was supposed to be, the first thing they noted were the large chambers on the far left and right. Most of them didn't appear to be on, but several of them had interfaces on, revealing numbers and other readings that were mostly difficult to understand. A few of the readings were fairly clear:

Name: HoOh
Shd: 100%
Rad: 100%
Ctrl: 0%
Errors:

Name: Entei
Shd: 30%
Rad: 40%
Ctrl: 60%
Errors: !! Check heat sinks !!

Name: Suicune
Shd: 70%
Rad: 20%
Ctrl: 40%
Errors: !! Check pressurizer !!

Name: Raikou
Shd: 100%
Rad: 20%
Ctrl: 30%
Errors: !! Replace element-proofing soon !!

Name: HoOh2
Shd: 10%
Rad: 10%
Ctrl: 85%
Errors: !! Critical error !!
!! Subject in stasis until full system diagnostics performed !!

The final chamber appeared to be melted partially, but oddly enough, it had been melted from the outside...

The rumbling was coming from the first chamber...

"Krrrr... Brulee... where is... Brulee..."

"Y'know, kinda weird that they'd be kept in this abandoned lab all this time," Soda remarked to himself.

"That's because the boring Mewtwo is practically working by himself! I bet he's so overworked he didn't have time for here!" Darkwhite said. "All his assistants just follow exactly what he says, and they're all shadowy! Mindless! Oh, speaking of which, I'm gonna continue what I started!"

Darkwhite started bashing her arms, which had become giant fists, into HoOh2's chamber. The status screen started listing more errors.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

It sounded like there was something alive in those chambers... which meant that Darkwhite smashing them probably wan't the best idea. If they caved in, they could seriously injure whoever was trapped inside.

He couldn't think of anything better to do, though. Not through the fog of radiance crowding his head from using too much Radiant Vision. Still, Darkwhite was clearly being horribly irresponsible. They shouldn't have brought her along.