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 Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 3:24 am
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"If anything," Sol remarked, "I'd say this is the exact time to throw concerns about 'unseemly' methods to the wind. But yes, let's see to dealing with our oversized friend here." He'd join in the attacks by sending his Leafeon out, charging and readying a Solar Beam in turn.
"Hoja! Like we practiced last night! Leaf Blade and be ready to move on my mark!" Hoja would do his part to help take Klawf down with the attack, Sol giving a shout as soon as his attack was ready to fly to give ample time to avoid any crossfire as the Solar Beam furthered the efforts. Regardless, the party's efforts seemed to see things through as the Klawf's size had substantially gone down after their defeat. And, just as importantly, the Herba Mystica was probably safe? It wouldn't hurt to try and get a sample, Sol thought. Both to actually see it with his own eyes and to learn more about it.
But first, the sudden remark from Tsuki to Aile... and a confused glance from the Ho-oh hybrid as he overheard. "Er?" Being privy to the team's business side of things, he somewhat remembered a younger member who joined and pulled out suddenly with little explanation, perking up when he thought about the name again. He'd refrain from saying anything to either of them in the moment, pulling out his SNAG to double check himself and make sure he wasn't misremembering. Team members coming and going weren't entirely uncommon, after all. |
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Posted: Tue Feb 27, 2024 8:38 pm
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Aile chuckled as Tati returned to her, with added head scritches to boot. Seems like Tati made another friend already, and she had barely been here and with this kid. Ah well, it was all good. She seemed to have that effect on people. And with the Flygon’s tail thumping, she could tell that Tati was also happy to get them. “Yeah, I would be her trainer. You can call me Aile. You may or may not hear a fancier name that Aile could be derived from here at the school, but I’d rather go by that. And this here’s Tatooine, although you can also call her Tati. Also, my bear here is Dagobah, though she also goes be Dega.” Her smile would drop to confusion when Tsuki seemingly out of the blue asked to join up with Snagem. Again, apparently. “Uh…” She looked around, unsure of what to say. She didn’t think she had gone up back that high within the hierarchy of Snagem to be able to authorize anything like that, though that was probably a whole other problem she had. And wasn’t going to even attempt to address it at that point, either. No, she decided the best course of action was to look for someone who she deemed above her to handle new recruits. And the woman’s eyes would find Sol, currently looking at his SNAG. “Hey, Sol! You mind helping with a team related question over here?”
Tati and Dega would give each other a look, the bear confused while Tati had a mild amount of concern before giving a small sigh and shrug. There wasn’t much she could do about that at the moment.
Whenever Sol would get there to take over and after she explained what was going on with the situation, she'd turn to Arven, who asked about the herba. "I've got it, however, considering on of the regional Woopers is in my backpack right now, we might wait until we get back to the school. It's in an area that the Wooper's not in.
"Woop!" The Wooper popped its head out cheerily, hearing it being mentioned.
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Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2024 7:55 am
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Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2024 9:41 am
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Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2024 6:18 pm
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Freth’s taxi would eventually land and she would step out of the taxi. It didn’t escape her notice that the taxi driver started giving her something akin to the stink-eye, probably due to her being an avian based hybrid, and yet she didn’t fly herself. She barely was able to hover, though it wasn’t really all that practiced. She wasn’t going to try to justify herself however. It was what it was. Maybe since now that she wasn’t in peril constantly, she could try to practice it out from here on. She would focus and start hovering off the ground, just couple of inches to get her feet to clear the ground. That was her own personal assignment to try to get better with her psychic capabilities.
“Hey Eris, question for you. Ever heard of those professors? That Turo and Sada?” Freth asked the resident in her head, keeping the conversation private.
“Can’t say that I have.” The hunter replied back.
“Really? That’s surprising.” Freth stated.
“Ultra Space is vast. And even though many worlds share similarities, they’re not guaranteed to share everything. Variants, remember? This Turo and Sada probably aren’t really relevant in the grand scheme of things.” Eris replied. A wave of agitation come over to her; nothing that didn’t escape the hunter’s notice. “Yes, lucky them, unlike Blizzard.”
“Shut up…” Freth said.
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Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2024 7:11 pm
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Tsuki was out of the Squawkabilly Taxi next, hopping out in a pair of hiking boots and cargo shorts to make hiking much easier than the trip yesterday. He had more or less gone in his regular uniform and his feet were still feeling the consequences of that decision. No, the slightly giddy teen at least learned from his mistakes. Speaking of, in order to avoid a repeat of the last time he ran away to join a group of vigilantes, how was he going to tell his aunt and uncle that he was planning on not staying in Paldea? How-? Wait. The boy looked down for a moment. How was he going to continue his education? Tsuki was a few years into his program and it wasn’t like there were many schools that would accommodate never being there.
He’d have to have a talk with Director Clavell.
Putting that thought aside, Tsuki turned around and helped Maggie out of the Taxi after him. She was rocking a new necklace that he had made out of a Heat Rock he had gotten on their way back from fighting that massive Klawf. There were other things he could have grabbed, but Tsuki had noticed that a lot of the people on this part of the group tended to run Fire or Grass type Pokemon. Without a massive heavy hitter, he figured putting up extended Sunny Days was the best support he could do. Was he forgetting something?
Oh right, the lighthouse.
“It might just be where they kept their computers. I know some professors, like Birch, do a lot of their research in the field.” Tsuki said to Aile, putting a hand over his head and scanning the horizon for anything else that stood out.
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Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2024 7:58 pm
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Odd had gone out along with the others to find the assortment of flying taxis with their loud, yet effective couriers awaiting them. Taking a seat in one of them, he’d watch the Paldea region pass by far below, idly searching for signs of any native Pokémon he might like to catch for himself as they traveled. He opened up his SNAG’s camera and used the incredibly effective(and clear) zoom to look for anything he saw that interested him. “What’s with the weird-looking towers all over the place?” He asked the taxi driver/pilot.
“The watchtowers? Leftovers from the Great Paldean Empire. Nobody knows exactly why they were built but they’re historic landmarks so they get maintained for future generations to see.” The pilot replied. “If you’re observant, you might find a stray Gimmighoul hiding treasures around one now and then. Those little critters are fond of old structures like that.”
“Gimmighoul?” Odd asked, curious.
“Yeah. They’re tiny little things on their own, not much bigger than a gold coin. They love those coins, though, and roam about hunting for them. Some folks say they’ve found entire chests full of gold coins with a Gimmighoul protecting it. Never seen such a sight, myself, but I’m inclined to believe those types of stories.”
“Interesting. Reminds me of Meowth a bit…” Odd remarked, recalling stories of Meowth making off with coins because they tended to be infatuated with the round shape.
“I wouldn’t say so. Meowth like the shape but they don’t seem to care much for its value. Gimmighoul seem to know the coins they hunt down are valuable and hunt them because of it. Maybe it’s because they’re Ghost-types? Those Pokémon always seem to have some weird tales about them saying they were human, or share their trainers’ emotions or memories or something like that…” The pilot replied, steering his flock of parrots n the direction of the Poco Path lighthouse. “By the way, we’ve reached your drop off point.”
Odd nodded as he made sure to collect his things and prepared to disembark. “Thanks for the ride!” He called as he exited the cab, waving as the driver took off one more. Turning toward the lighthouse to get a better look, he’d see the others gathering around the front and walked toward them. “Are we entirely sure this is a lab? Kukui’s bungalow in Alola seems bigger, granted I think I’ve only ever seen it from outside but even so…” he would trail off at that point, looking toward the corner of the building, feeling like he had seen something very small moving around that was now just out of sight.
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Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2024 7:52 pm
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Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2024 7:39 am
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"The lighthouse is the lab, my father liked his space compact and mom preferred field study anyways, indeed not dissimilar from Professor Birch. Plus we needed space to live...this was also our home...I'm told the lab portion was bigger before I was born." Arven responded to everyone's musing as he stepped out of the Squawkabilly, his eyes fixed on the building as he spoke, memories of another time flooding back into his mind. Raifort and Barbara the Rock Channeler arrived behind him but said nothing, this was Arven's moment.
"I have the key..." Arven responded to Beau as he approached the front door, swinging his backpack around and setting it on the ground before proceeding to dig through it in search of an item he hadn't laid hands on in some time but knew exactly where to find it. Before long he pulled out said key, an unassuming key like any others however with a plastic bow. Arven would inside the key into the doorknob and turn it however a beep and then a ding would sound as he did, the key having some sort of NFC chip in it for extra security.
"It's...unlocked..." Arven said, leaving the door cracked slightly as he stepped to the side. "You can go in...I'm going to stay out here for now..." He continued, fishing a Pokeball out and releasing some sort of canine Pokemon, a Mabosstiff, the dog letting out a low howl as he appeared. "Come on, Mabosstiff, let's go check out the back yard, see if you remember your old spot..." With that Arven and his dog walked off, heading towards the back of the lab and leaving them to do what they will.
Raifort would call out and thank Arven as he walked away but the boy didn't respond, the teacher feeling a bit ashamed for bringing him here but not bad enough to stop herself from entering the lab, Barbara behind here.
Inside the group would find themselves in the immediate living quarters, a small little kitchen and sitting area, no bedrooms seen from here but one might imagine they were elsewhere separated by a door. The room lacked any light except for the sun shining in from the back window, the old crayon drawings on the fridge and dust indicating how long it had been since this place was a home. An array of bones, rocks and feathers littered the dining room table, perhaps something professor Sada was studying.
Further in, past the jammed packed bookshelves, was a step down into what was clearing the lab itself, only an old sofa and dry erase board separating it from the living quarters. numerous machines were packed into this side of the building and in particular was a six monitor computer station, no doubt where Professor Turo did his work. The set up was typical for a Pokemon professor, he even had a machine to heal Pokemon, the only thing standing out was the old dog bed. All of the machines and computers were turned off.
"Well, this is it." Ms. Raifort declared as she looked around. "Remember, we're looking for the Violet book, as it sounds it's a purple book, you can't miss it. There are a lot of books here but if we work together we can go through them quickly. A couple of you help go through the books and the rest of you see if you can't find it laying around anywhere else. I don't want to upset Arven anymore than we have so be careful with everything and if you move something put it back where you found it. Also be careful with the machines, I'm not sure what does what."
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Posted: Fri Apr 05, 2024 11:10 am
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Aile turned a bit red in embarrassment, not realizing that this was also doubling as an entire family’s living space. “Ah, sorry Arven. I didn’t mean… Sorry.” She looked down as Arven unlocked the door, looking up and watching the boy and his unfamiliar dog as they went to the backyard. “...I really hope I didn’t insult him somehow,” she muttered, waiting a moment before deciding to follow him towards the back. “Hey, uh, sorry if I wound up insulting your old home”, she’d apologize, rubbing her hand against the back of her head. “The main lab that sticks out to me would be Sycamore’s lab in Lumiose, so… Sorry, again.”
Deciding to divert the topic, she’d turn her focus to the canine with Arven. “So the Pokemon with you. I haven’t come across that species before personally, at least not in the last twenty years or so. What kind of Pokemon are they?”
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Posted: Sat Apr 06, 2024 7:27 pm
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Freth would follow the rest of the group in, though noting Arven wanting to stay out. For someone to allow others into what was once his home must have been a weird spot for the kid. Probably this place had no semblance of home any longer to him. Freth found herself pitying him, in all honesty. It left her to wonder just what was so important they’d have to leave behind their kid like that? The both of them, more specifically. Whatever was supposed to be in this book better have been worth the trouble.
Looking around, Freth felt her sinuses getting slightly agitated. The dust getting kicked up from the shift in air pressure from the door finally being opened up. The dry, blighted smell. This place, for all intents, had been abandoned. It was a wonder why no one actually bothered keeping up with this place. For that matter, more questions started to loom; for instance, did people actually bother going after this Sada and Turo? Rescue parties and the like? Just what was in that crater that would stop people from going in, or for that matter barred from going in. Freth made it a note to see if she couldn’t sneak peeks into other things. She did say that she was going to delve into what made this region tick, after all. What better place to start?
Freth started to move about the room, noting just how cramped it was; trying to be mindful as to not bump into everyone. She would weave about the bodies and furniture in the room as everyone tried to split up to find anything that would be that Violet book. As she started to check about the various objects, papers, and books in the room, the Hunter would once again speak up. “Freth, wait.”
“What?” Freth asked to her mental resident.
“Go back. What’s that? On the dry-erase board.” Freth hovered about, turning about to see on the far wall was a dry-erase board, with various numbers and formulas. As she slowly hovered closer to it, she’d notice the ink on it was a fair bit crumbled and dried out to time. Perhaps long enough for most of what managed to stay that was meant to be erasable is now permanent on the board without any means to scrub it clean.
“Sooo…what am I looking at?”
“…….I…recognize this…sort of?”
“Wait, what? Bullcrap.”
“I mean, the math is rather off…but these…looks like coordinates.” Eris stated.
“Coordinates?” Freth would once again stare at the various numbers and formulas before her, staring in a bit of disbelief. “Where in the absolute hell do you get coordinates out of this mess?”
“Not like coordinates that you are used to in this world.” She said. “This isn’t like longitude and latitude. The formula is similar to what I have seen in trying to find paths into Ultra Space. But the math is all…wrong...”
“If the math is ‘wrong’, then I doubt this has anything to do with Ultra Space.” Freth said, rolling her eyes despite not saying a word in the physical space.
“Or it perhaps could. Though the math is wrong…to what I am to understand of Ultra Space navigation, these formulas…they’re too linear.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll humor it; meaning what for those who only gets forcefully tossed into Ultra Space as opposed to having stable means of traveling it.” Freth asked.
“Instead of having free reign to go wherever in the vast Ultra Space, its…well, it’s time traveling without actually time traveling. Its…how do I describe it? Like instead of going to someplace radically different from our world, you just stayed within the span of realities with super close similarities to our own, and within that line of realities, each one is perhaps a spot within relative history. Think as if for example you had the means to actually control going to Hisui in a similar spot to how Hisui was for our world, for example. The reverse is also true; same ‘row’ or ‘column’ of realities, but going in the other direction is a relative ‘future’.” Eris would try to explain.
“I think I am getting it…sort of? Butterfly effect stuff, right?”
“God, that is not a thing!” Eris shouted in Freth’s mental reaches, exasperated. “This is why it’s impossible to talk to people that doesn’t understand this and just another reason why I took the dive to go after Blizzard’s head without telling anyone in this blasted world! Look, its complicated; what I just said is just a very loose summary. Honestly, I spent the first year with the Recon Squad just trying to learn how this stuff worked. Its how I managed to break explanation down for myself. And truthfully? There’s still plenty I don’t quite get. I basically got enough down just to manage to travel safely with others.” Eris stated.
“…and I’m guessing that these professors were messing around with Ultra Space?”
“They were after something; realized somehow that there was something, but it’s hard to say. I don’t know if they knew what they were getting into. Considering there has apparently been no contact with them if Raifort is to be believed and in the process they left a child as an orphan, I’m guessing they got in over their heads and into something they really shouldn’t have.”
Freth wasn’t all that convinced, but at the same time, she had to admit that she didn’t have much to go on. Though really? Eris was only saying such things because of, to Freth, a random bunch of scrawls on a dry-erase board. Maybe it was something going on in Area Zero? Or maybe super mundane as to figure out lunch for the next day. Freth would walk away from the dry-erase board and start to go through the drawers, trying to put the workout in with her psychic powers to get that practiced some more. Drawers started to slowly pull open and various objects started to float out, spaced out enough for Freth to actually see what it was. At least this way it wasn’t going to be her prints going on these things. “Ms. Raifort.” Freth would speak up. “Considering that before they left, the professors worked out of a pretty cramped space for what was supposedly a lab, I’m guessing these professors weren’t the standard Pokémon professor fare. Did they specialize in anything in particular?” she asked. Maybe this would give some clarity as to what was going on; maybe put the mental resident in her mind at ease.
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Posted: Sun Apr 07, 2024 5:04 pm
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Watching Arven wander off into the backyard, Tsuki couldn’t help but feel a little bit of guilt about being here now. This definitely wasn’t a place that made the other boy feel warm and fuzzy inside. He probably felt he just wanted to escape and not have to see this place anymore. A significant part of his own experience related; he’d give anything to never see his grandfather’s dojo ever again. Not after trying so hard to be included, to be a part of the training his other guy family members got to do when they were little. Tsuki grumbled to himself at the thought. He had fought so hard, even taking Allen down a peg once or twice. Well. Maybe his experience wasn’t exactly one to one. Where Arven clearly looked and seemed comfortable being dejected, his own blood decided that boiling was the best option.
Tsuki stepped inside of the lighthouse, Maggie in tow.
“Phew, it’s all kinds of dusty in here ain’t it?” He asked, waving his hand in front of himself whilst Freth began what he’d describe as a staring contest with a white board. Thinking of himself, he was was still stuck on algebra let alone whatever Turo must have been working on- so he decided to leave her to it. He stepped past her and looked around, catching a once happy family photo and gently turning it around for a potential secret key or code. Hm. No dice. With a sigh, he moved deeper into the dual professor’s lab. There was a computer there, so he quickly hopped onto the worn chair in front and began to move his hand below to find the ‘On’ switch.
Upon seeing the monitor light up back to life, Tsuki called out to the others. “Anybody know how to bypass passwords? Or uh, know Arven’s birthday… my bet it’s that.” He said with a shrug. That was what parents were supposed to use for passwords, right? Not that’d he know. “Can GRAY get into computers?” He’d add, partly as an open question but also partly as a thought to himself.
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Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2024 3:54 am
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Sol had opted to keep himself quiet as he listened to Raifort's spiel. He had questions, some that others like Freth had already taken the liberty of asking, some that came as the conversation continued. Endemic as the Shadow Virus became, he had his doubts that even the Herba Mystica could provide the sort of miracle work she sounded hopeful for... if not using as a carrot on a stick to keep the team members on the path they'd chosen. It was rare to hear it get brought up in a way that suggested anything beyond simply dealing with it when it came up.
If anything else had perked his attention, it was the remark about the books and the likely reason why he had no luck in finding out where they'd gone. He was right that the academy had a set. But to seemingly abuse power to go to a lab to try and procure them? With an arguably younger student, no less? He wanted to speak up then, but then he'd heard Tsuki speak up. He remembered the talks they'd had on the way back to the Academy last night, what led to his departure from the team and to Paldea and other details that gave him pause. Brief as it was, he only pried as much as he seemed willing to. He couldn't help feeling he was maybe getting more caught up in Raifort's comments than the others, but there was a fire in those words.
A fire that seemed eager to burn wherever it reached, but a fire nevertheless.
Now, at the lighthouse lab on Poco Path, he finally let himself find his voice upon Freth's question about the professors and Tsuki's comments. "I'll admit I've had the same questions about the professors. They're certainly not names I recognize, and even with shrinking the lab for a child to live and- I'd hope- grow, most tend to have access to much bigger living and working arrangements. I get the hint their speciality didn't include helping new trainers begin their own journeys."
"As for that thought, Tsuki," he added as he started his own looking around for the Violet Book, "We could if it truly came to it, but I'd rather we not resort to that if we can avoid it. Also, a birthday is a horribly insecure password that wouldn't be hard to brute force. I'd like to hope they had better password practices."
Much as he felt like the dog bed was nothing important, he gave it a brief search anyway before taking his attention towards one of the bookshelves.
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Posted: Mon Apr 08, 2024 7:59 pm
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As the others went inside, Odd stopped for a moment at the door, feeling a powerful sense of... something, from inside. It was hard to say exactly but he had learned that while he couldn't read minds or hearts like a Psychic or a Fairy channeler could, he certainly picked up on powerful, lingering emotions in spaces that had a lot of spiritual energy in them. Especially if they were negative emotions. For a moment he could swear he saw Arven just inside the door but he had already watched the boy and his dog wander off to the backyard with Aile trailing after before that. "Ok... Baroque, hang out by the door..." He decided, releasing his Cofagrigus by the front door before walking in and shaking his head in an effort to dismiss the bad feeling he had brewing. Hopefully it was nothing more than Arven having feelings of resentment toward his absent parents, which he absolutely couldn't blame the kid for.
Upon getting inside and seeing the others begin investigating, he saw how Freth avoided touching anything directly and decided she had the right idea. As he moved around the lab, his shadow stretched out in thing ribbons that proceeded to wind around and move various items so he could get a clearer look at them. He'd ended up checking out a bookshelf that no one else was around and was pulling the books off one after another, piling them on the floor beside him with the shadowy ribbons as he did, hands clasped together behind his back as he looked at each book's cover so that he could decide if it looked "violet" or not. Not like he would be able to read whatever title was on it if he did find it, after all.
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Posted: Wed Apr 10, 2024 3:31 pm
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Brian and Rachel stepped off the taxi they had been riding, both silent. Brian couldn't pick up on thoughts or emotions like some Channelers and a lot of Pokemon could, but he could tell by body language when something wasn't right. Arven clearly didn't want to be here, and from the state of the inside of the building, it was obvious no one had been here for quite some time. Rachel glanced at him as if to ask if he was going inside, but he shook his head, and she nodded. She was curious about this book, and what kinds of secrets it could hold regarding Pokemon, so she would help in the search. "Professor, what do you know about Area Zero?" she asked. Brian, on the other hand, noticed Arven and Aile going to the back, and decided to follow.
He found the two with a Pokemon he didn't recognize, but before he could ask what it was, Aile beat him to it. He was curious about the Pokemon Paldea had to offer, and while he was thinking about it, he decided to let one of his own team out. Taking out his Pawmi's Pokeball, he tossed it into the air and let the little Electric-type out. The Pawmi, whom he'd named Thunderfist, looked up at him curiously as he reached into his bag. He pulled out the container that held the poffins he made and took out one designed for Electric-types, holding it out to Thunderfist. The Pawmi, curious, approached and sniffed the treat for a moment before eating it. Apparently, the little guy liked the taste so much he decided to beg for another, which prompted Brian to chuckle as he replaced the container in his bag, but not before offering Arven one for his Mabostiff. He wasn't sure what type the canine-looking Pokemon was, but if the coloring was anything to go by, he was likely either a Dark or Normal-type "Not right now, Thunderfist," he said, rubbing the Electric-type's head fondly. "I'll give ye another after dinner. Arven, this one is for... Mabostiff, is that his name?"
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