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 Posted: Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:24 pm
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After a relatively brief detour over to Snagem’s HQ to drop off Isaac’s expense report, Aile, Isaac, and Reno would wind up in Hammerlocke City, Aile for the second time, at least. Once they arrived, she would lead them to the bar that she and Robert were frequenting the past couple of days, at least before she watched the fight between Crystal and Reno. It was a smaller sized bar, but it looked like it was visited well enough, with a good few people in there already today. There was one person in particular that Aile was looking for, and she found him sitting at the bar today. “Was hoping you wouldn’t change things up here, Robert,” she greeted the old, balding man as she sat down next to him.
Robert would wave at Aile with a wide grin, then look at the two people that she arrived with. “Well well, Windeh, I wasn’t expectin’ yeh teh bring companeh alreadeh. Much less be back here alreadeh, fer dat matter.” He took a look at Reno, noting the shiny new prosthetics, and then looking over Isaac. “So, yeh must be teh friend of Windeh’s here dat damn near killed ‘imself, tough I never got yehr name,” the old man commented, pointing at Reno. “And yeh,” moving his pointed finger to Isaac, “I dun have much of an inklin’. Who might yeh two beh?”
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Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2021 8:17 pm
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Reno would give a curt nod to the older gentleman that they found Aile sliding up to immediately as they entered, giving acknowledgement to his being called out. "Yep. That, unfortunately, is me. Once again losing life and limb punching out things that I ought not be punching out. Last time was tyranny, this time was things not from around these parts." Reno would trail off, attention slowly drifting as he began to think on what exactly he had just fought off before snapping back to attention. "Right. Focus. Name's Reno. Nice to make your acquaintance, Robert." Reno said, extending his right arm to shake the man's hand. He wasn't willing to test his new prosthetic on something like this just yet. Maybe see if he can avoid crushing a glass before moving on to avoid crushing a hand.
Before he could get engrossed in any other conversation, Reno was beginning to see and hear something of interest coming from the TV. It was tuned to view what they wanted to show of the competition and it looked like they were doing an exit interview. An exit interview for Aria. Apparently Team Stella had taken her out and....oh god, she was plugging everything she had going on right on live television. Oh God, she was plugging her Soundcast on international television after bombing the interview with her announcer position. Of course one of them was going to do something like this. At least, for once, it hadn't been him. "So.....thats a thing." Reno said as the interview cut off back to regular competition footage, hoping that Aile and Isaac had also seen exactly what the hell he had just seen.
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2021 3:43 pm
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"Isaac," the man in question replied to the bartender accompanied by a nod of greeting, "And the first round is on me. I don't know what they want, but I'll have..." He trailed off as he caught a glimpse of what was being broadcast on another television. Slowly, silently, and without tearing his eyes from the screen, he reached up and tapped his companions on their shoulders before pointing up at the monitor. On it, a fight between two Articuno hybrids had just concluded, Freth ramming the other through with a large sword. Whilst too far from the action to pick up any of the words exchanged between Freth and whoever she just killed it wasn't long before a voice all too familiar to Reno emanated from the speakers.
Chairman Rose "We apologize for technical difficulties cutting out our feed in this area. It was a whirlwind of excitement though folks as Snagem leader Sub arrived on scene to call Freth back into the Wild Area via Roto-drone, the lady hybrid swooping in to save her beloved from that villainous criminal who dared to ruin the World Champion Cup! While Freth was able to defeat this ne'er-do-well the Cold One was injured in the fight and had to be evacuated for a medical emergency. On behalf of Galar and the global community we would like to extend our thanks to Freth for stopping this intruder from ruining this unifying global event. Get well soon, Blizzard and we hope to see a lot more from Freth now that she is back in the game!"
"...Do you think we should call GRAY or Sub and check on Blizz?" Isaac finally commented, his voice barely above a whisper as he addressed the other Snagems. "Things appear to have gotten even farther out of hand since you left."
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2021 7:15 pm
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“I’ll take a hard cider, like the last couple of nights,” Aile told the barkeep as Isaac had started to give his order. She sighed as she heard Aria advertise herself and her music, shaking her head. “Oi vey. Of course….” The woman would turn to the screen that held Isaac’s attention, catching the tail end of the bit before Rose began to speak. “Ah… hah?” She stared in disbelief as her attention was held by the television, hanging her head as it finished and diverted to another part of the Wild Area.
“Pleasure teh meet teh bott of yeh. And maybeh yeh should take a back seat sometimes, take a day off, Reno.” The man would then turn to see what was keeping his drinking buddy’s attention now, tilting his head incredulously. “Might I ask yeh lot sometin’? How in teh feck do yeh lot ‘ave a chaos magnet like dat? Do yeh lot beh given sometin’ dat jus’ attracts it?”
“I don’t know, unless the SNAGs are made with something? Reno?” Aile would lift her head up to take the drink from the bartender and take a long swig of it. “And here, I thought we’d slow down on the dramatic s**t once the war was over,” the woman muttered under her breath. |
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Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:42 pm
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Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 3:54 pm
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Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2021 6:08 pm
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Robert and Aile would both be staring at Reno after his question-slash-comment to the woman, Aile looking almost exasperated while the old man cocked an eyebrow. “Yehr feckin’ kiddin’.”
“I’m echoing both of these two’s sentiments,” she sighed, taking a long drink of her cider. “Though, less on the doom aspect but, how the hell do you know? I’m not even sure I want to know what might specifically be on the horizon, but how?” She looked down for a moment and tilted her head, some gears turning in her head.
“Lass… teh offehr from a few nights ago is still on teh table if yeh-” Robert would be interrupted from giving out his proposition once again, apparently, by Aile lifting her pointer finger, not even looking at the old man. Finally her gaze would return to Reno, taking another swig of her drink from the bottle.
“Reno, what do you know about Sub that we don’t?”
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Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2021 8:03 pm
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Reno would take another breath before taking another draw off of his own bottle, making sure to savor the drink for a moment this time before answering. How best to word exactly what he knew and some of the conclusions he had drawn from it. Well, at least step one was neatly taken care of by the fact this tournament had shown where this began. "So back before the war really hit top gear, I kinda went on my own little journey of self-discovery. Did some meditating, kicked a lot of things, and accidentally called back that thing I lost my leg over to where its brain was. So, we started fighting and it was doing its best to shake me using what it had so it could take advantage and grab me. Most of those aren't relevant except when it tried to scare me with the thing that brought it to heel way back when. Even gave me a little dose of the residual energy the thing had on it still from its leash." Reno began, keeping himself turned away from his two friends as he kept an eye on the crowd nearby to see if anyone was paying too much attention to this. Robin had mentioned a cult and he still had no idea how widespread such a group might actually be.
Eventually, Reno would feel like he was at least relatively safe for the moment as he began to talk again, his robotic hand mindlessly drumming its fingers against his leg. "It obviously didn't work, but it left an impression. An impression I really did not expect to mean anything after that since I thought I killed it. And then Black City happened." Bringing his hand sup to his face again, Reno would run them through his hair a few times as he continued, indicating to Isaac as he spoke now. "Remember that wave of Sub's energy you sent out? The one everyone piggybacked off of to power themselves up? It.....it was eerily similar to what that thing tried to frighten me with. Enough so, when I took that cocoon after all that, I buried it as deep as I could because I wanted to believe that it was the cause of all this. And if not, then that it might be that meteorite, especially after what it made me do and everything related to that. But I never lost the thought that it was purely Sub that caused the energy. So now I just watch and wait for the other shoe to drop, if it even does. I could be completely irrationally paranoid, just using this as an outlet for all the myriad trauma I've repressed and called my life. I don't know anymore if I'm reading too much into everything around me or just enough to see the truth. All I know is I need time to process this away from Sub."
He would take another drink as he finished, hoping to keep himself from going further into his more paranoid connections he thought he had found. Eventually finding the bottle to be empty, the red head would simply let it fall to the counter before he collapsed himself, only holding his head up with his own two hands. "So there. That's at least one thing about Sub I know you don't. There are other things that are less related to the eeriness if you want. Just to put all the cards on the table with other people besides myself."
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2021 2:17 pm
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As Reno launched into his alcohol assisted explanation, Isaac withdrew a small notepad and pen that was squirreled away in his back pocket. At first glance it might have appeared that he was taking notes of the details of Reno's story. If either the subject in question or Aile actually looked, they would discover that they were wrong about that, but not at all surprised by what Isaac was actually writing. 'Subject displays autonomic metronomic behaviors in prosthetic limb. No noticeable lag or calibration issues in either gross or fine motor skills. Control cluster link to nervous system seems to be operating within upper reaches of acceptable parameters. Good job Merideth.' Closing the notebook and setting it on the bar, Isaac replaced the pen in his hand with his glass and took a long draw of the ale within as his mind shifted gears away from scientific observation and began to contemplate the contents of Reno's verbal meandering.
"So, you're worried about Sub having more power than he lets on. And that he might, what, do terrible things with it? I hate to break it to you, but that applies to about half of Snagem. Anytime Beau hit combat, he is a lit match away from blowing up whatever building he is in. Aiden could do all sorts of creatively terrible things with his powers, Cera too if she actually focused. Darts has the raw power to destroy entire cities if he lets loose and looses control. And Blizz could easily cause the next ice age and destroy life as we know it." Abreviated list completed, Isaac took another draw from his glass before continuing. "Look, if you were saying that Sub is about to Swanna dive so far into the deep end to give Lysander a run for his money I'd be worried too. But right now, all you are saying is that he has a depth to his power that we haven't seen yet."
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Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2021 9:32 pm
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Aile listened to Reno patiently, looking down at the bartop part way through.That energy back in Black City was indeed something else, but it was the same as other stuff Reno felt? Joyous. And Isaac’s whole listing of what some of the others could do didn’t really make her feel any better, in fact almost the exact opposite. Throwing indirect shade at Sub from Reno brought back memories from when she was a captured enemy of the Snagems instead of one of the group, and of what happened when Sub finally entered her cell. She had tried to shove it to the back of her mind, and after a while succeeded in that, at least until now. And Isaac listing off the others’ capabilities did not help her with her worry if something like that somehow happened again and they had no tolerance for it this time.
The first motion Aile took after staring for maybe a good minute at least at the bartop would be to down the rest of her cider, motioning to the bartender once she was done. “Can I get another one of these, mixed with some whisky this time, though? Cinnamon whisky if you have it.” The bartender nodded and returned with her ordered drink after a couple of minutes. “So. Pretty much, you’re paranoid about Sub because of two energy signatures being extremely similar, one of them being the leash to the thing that decided to nearly devour the mind of our purple furred friend yesterday,” she summed up quietly once the bartender had left to make up another drink. She had taken note of Reno’s pause and glance around, so she assumed discretion, or at least being quiet when they talked about it, was wanted. “I mean, that s**t has me worried, too, now, but I have my own reasons. If the man wants to do something, he’s gonna do ahead and do it, damned be talking to anyone about it. I mean, unless you all talked about and called it good, dropping me off in the middle of a desert in all black, shackles, no shoes, and my Pokemon scattered to the wind.” She had one hell of a stare at the two men she arrived with as she took a drink of her spiked hard cider, if that was even a technical thing, alcohol on alcohol, rubbing her wrists once she put her drink down.
Robert just took all of this in, looking at the three people discussing their boss. The old man just figured that he should keep quiet as they talked, as outside of wanting to help Aile out as much as possible, he didn’t have much of a vested interest or stake in any of this. His focus would turn specifically to the woman as she spoke up, a small bit of concern or worry on his face. Finally, he tore his gaze from Aile to his bottle of beer, taking a swig of it once more as he considered a thought.
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Posted: Fri Mar 19, 2021 9:08 pm
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Reno would glance at Isaac and Aile as they both responded to his own personal mildly mad ravings over their leader. And it went about how he expected: Isaac brushing past it because it wasn't an immediate, observable issue and Aile having concerns after having dealt with Sub's capriciousness. Well, he figured he would focus on the more pointed response. "There is never any choice when it comes to Sub. Once a whim possesses him, that's it. The entire group could choose one thing, but if Sub wants it the other way, ninety percent of the time it will go that way." Reno added to Aile's explanation of what happened to her, taking a swig of his own drink again before looking towards his friend. "Would've helped you if I could've figured out a way to do so. Only upside is I can get you the same T-shirt I got. 'Sub traumatized and tried to kill me and all I got was some stupid channeling'."
Giving a small smile at his own joke, Reno would take a moment to collect himself before speaking. It would take a minute, the alcohol that was helping him actually have this conversation doing its best to hinder him fully focusing like he was wanting. But eventually, mental faculties would win out over inebriation and he would speak up again. "I didn't say any of this to be like 'we need to organize against Sub'. Hell, I'd still be more worried about Deoxys being the source rather than Sub after all the puppeteering it did with me. But given what I've experienced being involved with him and his record outside of that, I just want to make sure we keep an eye on him. Whether that's for his safety or ours is to be determined later."
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Posted: Sat Mar 20, 2021 10:38 pm
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“I don’t want the shirt, though. Can I get a refund on that? Maybe not meeting the people of Pyrite, I like some of those sons of bitches, including Robert here, but you know, the how that happened. Seriously.” Aile would take a long drink of her spicy sweet concoction before continuing. “Lovely, though. Good talk. So, it could also be crazy… What the hell is a Deoxys, anyways? But still need to keep an eye on Sub, for either his safety or ours, or more likely, option c, both. Lovely. Let’s hope he doesn’t get paranoid for whatever reason.”
“If fer watevehr reason yeh need a place teh hide out at, my bar’ll beh open fer yeh,” Robert offered. “Jus’ try not teh get yehr arses severeleh hurt. Hildeh might beh a good medic, but dere’s onleh so much sheh can do. Bringin’ one back from teh dead ain’t in dat skill set, an’ brink of deat’ll be a b***h also.”
“I don’t think any of us are planning on that, Robert. Thankfully.”
“Yeh especially, Windeh.” Robert would give Aile a poignant stare as she took yet another drink, though a smaller one this time.
“What? What? I’m not as bad off as I was back then. Now that I know that a good chunk of Snagem doesn’t somehow still hate my guts. Somehow. Somehow. I still don’t understand the reasoning he gave…” she muttered there at the end, staring at the liquor shelf behind the bar as Robert continued to stare at Aile, now with a more annoyed look.
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Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2021 6:56 pm
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Isaac was silent for a long while, giving Aile and the bartender plenty of time to air their own thoughts on Aile's exile in the desert and Sub in general. Even after their words ceased, there were still a few more minutes that passed in silence as Isaac stared into the depths of his drink. None of the amber liquid passed into his mouth during this time, as Isaac contemplated the points that Reno brought up. The point about Sub getting things his way, come hell or high water, had resonated with Isaac in ways that Reno probably hadn't realized. There had been two past conversations between Isaac and Sub that exemplified Reno's point. After all, it hadn't been Isaac's original intention to make the new prosthetics out of Meltanium, but Sub had insisted.
Finally, after minutes of statuesque stillness, Isaac swept up his drink and downed the remaining ale in a single large swig. "Alright then," he declared as he thumped the glass back down on the bar, "How literal are we talking here with the whole 'keeping and eye' thing. Are we just casting sidelong glances at him, or should I go get some cameras and microphones to hide in HQ. I'm fairly certain I can keep GRAY from discovering them, provided we can shut him off while we are installing them."
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Posted: Sat Mar 27, 2021 11:21 pm
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Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2021 8:04 pm
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“Not a problem, lad,” Robert replied, nodding his head over to Aile, “Just do meh a favor an’ make sure dis one doesn’t do anythin’ stupid, will yeh?”
Aile rolled her eyes. “Robert, seriously? I’m better than when I left Orre, much less arrived. You don’t-” She cut herself off when she looked up at the TV once more finally, noting that it changed to focus on the Dynamax battle some of their friends were in. The giant Kingler wasn’t what caused her to pause, though. It was what the team’s effective pet had turned into. The thing looked like some sort of giant mouthed abomination, but pink, which Aile wasn’t sure of that was better or worse. “...What?” That was pretty much all she could think to say at the moment, not even taking a drink. What the hell happened that she was able to transform into some sort of eldritch abomination?
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