Chapter Three: Triple the Excitement

Author's note: today, the TV in your head is going to be working overtime trying to process imagery... as in, the literary device. For this reason, I heavily suggest you take the time to read the descriptive portions like you're supposed to: mentally saying the words as they come, at a pace you'd be comfortable with saying/reading out loud. That's the pace I operate at, or rather the pace 67 words per minute can actively support, more or less.

"War doesn't determine who is right, war determines who is left." - Bertrand Russell

(--o--)

A globe is a device meant to do quite a few things. Mainly, it demonstrates the fact that yes, the world is indeed round. However, it's not quite as round as you might expect, since the rotational force effectively squishes the North and South Poles closer together. The first world that comes to mind when you think 'globe' is the Earth, though: primarily blue and green, maybe with wisps of white meant to mimic clouds.

Or maybe all the mountains are red because you have one of those topographical globes, complete with 3D indents and bulges corresponding to height above sea level.

Point is, you need to take that globe in your head and then draw marker all over it, because it's wrong. The Earth that Pokemon call home is completely different; similar, yes, but the sites that you might recognize - Italy's boot, Japan's islands, the shape of the US or Europe - aren't where you might think they're supposed to be, and in some cases are absent altogether.

The place in the Pokemon world most similar to the Earth as you know it is Japan. Imagine it in your minds eye: a group of mountainous islands surrounded by ocean, with Asia a ways to the upper left. You might think that the sight is green, and if you zoomed in on Google Earth you might come to recognize that all of the greens, browns, and blues would form a breathtaking landscape.

Scribble with marker all over that too, because that's also wrong.

The current state of the Earth home to Pokemon meant the map of Japan had basically been drawn on a piece of college-ruled paper, crumpled up, flattened out, then crumpled up again and tossed overhand as hard as possible into a wood chipper, before someone did a half-ass job of taping the pieces together. You could still recognize that it was Japan, if barely, because you knew that it was Japan at one point and you could kinda see the way that one lopsided mass, with the enormous chunk missing, could've been Mt. Fuji.

That missing chunk was the result of the first and only use of a helium warhead by the conglomerate organization of Cipher, Rocket, Galactic, and Plasma. Bomb detonated, radiation flew, it's 'snowing' on Mt. Fuji. With their control of the media, they painted the blame on the Resistance, and then to prove their power they stole all of the radiation. No one knew how, and no one wanted to know how, so the hole's just kinda... there, now.

Not that you could see any of that anyway, because at the moment most if not all of the Earth Sphere was covered in bad weather. The Perfect Storm basically had a kid with The Day After Tomorrow, which left half the world frozen and the other half dealing with hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, and in the case of Japan, a large amount of electromagnetic storms.

And while all of these were the fault of the humans living there, only the purple lightning was a man-made phenomenon.

Zoom in on your Google Earth plane and eventually you might come across what looks like a wheel at high altitude. Zoom in further, and the wheel is revealed to be a city - and then your plane gets shot down by more purple lightning, straight from the massive tower in the city's center. Serves you right for using Google Earth.

This is Holon. The first and last stronghold for the forces of the Resistance. The buildings in the city proper were all half old and half new, as it was originally a small town meant to house only the essential research personnel that massive tower needed in order to function. But recently, those buildings became taller, and more buildings were built around them. The construction was functionally shoddy, clearly a rush job, yet even now the framework for several more buildings had been put up for another batch of either housing or facilities.

Now if you looked at it from an isometric perspective, none of the curved geometry would really make any sense until you upped the quality on your SimCity 2000 settings. Then you'd be able to see the hundreds of both people and Pokemon milling about, traveling in close-knit groups because sticking together was safer. It was an amazing sight to see, really, considering how the small little hamlet responsible for tracking Mew had become in a short three years.

Three years with basically no funding from anyone, much less the people who could actually supply the manual labor for construction, at least until the growing Resistance found the sparse pockets of the other good people.

"Look out, coming through, got people to do and things to see!" Came the voice of a certain blond-haired adult. He was special in regards to the beautiful sight, because just by being there he made it chaotic and interesting: he was running through the most densely packed portions of the city, closest to the tower, and forcing people out of the way as he had to navigate through yet another close-knit knot of conversation. He was one of dozens who were rushing towards the city center at any given time, but unlike them, he moved with less urgency than barely repressed panic.

And yes, you read that correctly. Nolan had one of those senses of humor.

"Sorry bruh!" The blond no-longer-a-youth shouted as he ran halfway up a wall, tucked into a roll, and knocked a much less youthful man to the side as he came back up in a renewed sprint. On a first-story roof in the middle of getting a second story.

"Watch were yer rollin,' Nolan! Ya might smash into someone who won't forgive ya!" Holy shit that was a clever pun that no one would ever get. I'm going to leave that realization in just to make you readers wonder about it.

Ignoring that, it was Nolan's boundless energy that had made learning parkour a very natural-feeling progression in line with his position as Trainer. Occasionally, the young man would glance up to see his Staraptor pointing his blond star in a different direction, leading his Trainer to the center building in as quick a route as possible. Coincidentally this also meant that the Trainer had picked up just enough speed to jump and grind his way down a railing with a loud SCREECH.

The reason for all this urgency and epic parkour, and the reason he could be forgiven for knocking people over left and right in his mad dash? Nolan had a briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist, and it was most certainly sturdy enough to handle nigh anything it was confronted with, even a point-blank Hyper Beam. In comparison, using it as a stand-in for a skateboard was no big deal. The only reason you'd even have a briefcase like that was if it had intelligence in it, and that was a very big deal considering how cut off from the rest of the world that the Resistance was.

All it took was another few wall runs, wall jumps, somersaults, barrel rolls, and a single double overhand reverse immelman jump into a 5-0 grind before the human came to a halt. It was almost comical in the sense that 'halt' meant 'plaster entire body against revolving door in order to make it turn.' It also meant the human missed his initial window and had to go all the way around a single time before he was finally in the bottom floor of the tower.

"Whew. Now, let's-"

"Nolan."

Nolan sighed. "Not now, Horrace. Please, this is an emergency! I don't have time for your useless security checks!"

Where Nolan was a thin, wiry man around nineteen years old, the main security officer for Holon was of a much larger build. It was like comparing an olympic sprinter to an olympic shotput guy, the gap in obvious muscular strength was so large. Horrace was the day guard for the Tower, here since before the whole Exodus thing and here now because he and the rest of the very secret group at Holon - so secret that Arceus apparently missed them entirely - had been left behind. Some protocols were still in effect to provide a sense of order and stability, and one of them was the job of human guards monitoring the human building meant for humans to track Legendaries - not like they were trying to be speciest or anything, it's just that powerful 'mon near sensitive electronics was a pretty big no-no.

And while Horrace did have half a mind to punt the Trainer right back out the door to join his Pokemon, he was willing to give Nolan the benefit of the doubt; all he had to do was point and take on an exasperated scowl. Nolan looked over his shoulder, and had to do a double-take before facepalming and tossing a Pokéball into the still-rotating door. As his Staraptor landed, it quickly pecked the Ball to get sucked in before the door brought it back around by pushing it with the continued rotation - tiny wobbles from the Staraptor inside got the Ball up and over the little groove and eventually to a stop within his Trainer's reach.

"There, problem solved," Nolan dramatically posed with a smirk, before reaching down and attaching said Ball to his belt. "Can I go now?"

"...might as well," Horrace grumbled past the palm on his face.

"Yes! Finally!" The Trainer whirled right around, and dashed directly - ow - into another person. Had said person not known that Nolan was in the building, she wouldn't have braced herself for an impromptu 'budge' by the infamously single-minded parkour enthusiast.

"There's a line," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Wha...? Oh, now that's just not fair!" The one universal constant that Nolan could do without: receptionists.

'We had the technology to scan chips, why not just install a scanner that detected a chip and forwarded the data to a computer in order to figure out whether or not the chip's data was wrong? If you included passwords and where you wanted to go, moving from place to place would be a snap!' Everyone always said one of three things: too complicated, too expensive, or 'fuck you Nolan, trying to get me out of a job.' Said last one was also only ever said by the receptionist he was complaining in front of, and while it tended to get Nolan sent into a laughing fit, it also tended to get him slapped. So instead of complain, the Trainer just hauled himself to his feet and proceeded start jogging in place, clearly very antsy.

No one wanted to tell Nolan that there was an emergency override code he could shout to get people to move, because if they did Nolan would use it constantly, even if it wasn't an emergency.

"Hey there sweetcheeks," came his voice once it was his turn. It was answered by Horrace groaning and muttering complaints under his breath, something along the lines of 'why.' "I've got an urgent missive regarding the whereabouts of the Acting Champion."

"Oh, it's you." Came the decidedly unimpressed receptionist lady. "You have an appointment?"

The blonde suddenly stopped in place, and leaned in close. "He's missing. We lost all contact - radio, cellular, tracking, everything - about an hour ago." Which, coincidentally, about a third of which was spent waiting in line for the permission he needed to enter the building proper.

She blinked slowly, before going wide-eyed as she belatedly realized he was very serious. "Room 403." Error: Forbidden, at least to the general public.

"Thanks." Cue him rearing back dramatically and then running left... and then around the corner, going up the stairwell as he couldn't be assed to wait for the elevator.

(--o--)

"So, as I was saying, we need t-"

All conversation was suddenly halted as the door was kicked open and breached by a sneakered leg. This was then followed by the rest of the human at fault, and a declaration. "Houston, we have a problem!"

Whitney 'Houston' proceeded to loudly facepalm. "Dammit Barry, I told you not to call me that!" Just because she shared the same first name as the Normal-type Gym leader and had a love for country music didn't mean that it gave Nolan the right to call her the name of her favorite 20th century singer. The Barry thing was an an inside joke - he was a long-lost twin to the blond of the same name that a certain Ash Ketchum once met.

"Well, it is the apocalypse," came Nolan's flippant reply. It was punctuated by the briefcase being slammed down at the head of the table. "So we need to find amusement in whatever we can. Especially now, 'cause I'm not wrong: we do have a problem. A very big one. Do we have any Delta Project staff in here?" A few people raised their hands, just as the door finished swinging shut - and the latch went with it, which meant this was now serious business. So as the blond proceeded to begin undoing the handcuffs and from there unlatching and unlocking the case, he dropped the bomb. "Jonah is missing. As in, officially."

The quiet conversations going on in the background were immediately silenced. "What do you mean?"

"I just came back from Delta Project HQ. Every feed we had from him just up and disappeared, and the last images we got were so distorted the only thing we could make out was a distortion in spacetime. Ironic, I know. My Staraptor ran an Ethered Aerial Ace all the way there and back, and this suitcase has all that was left behind - psychic-sourced report of the site included." Pop! Hiss. Yes, the suitcase was vacuum sealed.

And even Nolan had the chance to stare in complete and utter shock. "...oh you have got to be kidding me."

"What? What is it?!"

The blond turned the suitcase around to reveal a haphazard collection of a manilla folder, a holographic projector tablet, a smaller black case labeled 'Possible Evidence' and...

...and what looked like a ring. To be specific, a ring with a rather large garnet inset within, polished and glimmering with the latent psychic power imbued inside. It served to highlight the much smaller design held inside, twin swirls of repressed energy the hue of Gardevoirite.

Nolan carefully held it up between two fingers. "This was his mother's. He was... he told me this was for a special someone. And since I know none of us in here are really against Poképhilia, I can readily say that he meant his shiny Gardevoir." Not that Nolan knew he was wrong, of course; that was the original plan, but Jonah quickly found himself embroiled in a love triangle which meant he had to rethink everything.

The guy nearest Nolan proceeded to part the folds of the folder and find the folded-corner mass marked for distribution, which he then started passing out to the people sitting 'round the table. His name was Joey, and he was in possession of one of the top percentage of Ratatta, whatever that meant. Said purple rat was currently laying atop his Trainer's hat, and looked so at home there that his presence was widely ignored.

A few minutes of furious mental churning passed before that same guy summed up their thoughts: "So... what does this mean?"

"It means that there's a connection between his disappearance and that Gardevoir. Which is impossible, because..." Nolan's eyes widened as he finally finished booting up the tablet. "...oh fuck. Forget what I said, this is more important."

As Nolan set down the tablet and turned on the 'camera,' or rather the holographic projector, the entire room suddenly went dark as it wirelessly interfaced with the projectors on the war room planning table. Lights went off in places and on in other places, and eventually this resulted in the entire war room computer system running its money's worth trying to bring up thousands upon thousands of files.

"Holy shit," Rosa breathed. She was an anthro Zoroark, and she was currently out in the field, using a 3D camera in order to project a holographic likeness of her buxom self into her otherwise-empty chair. "Where the hell did he get this?"

"Half of this isn't even his," said one of the Delta Project guys. His name was Ben, and he thought shorts were comfy and easy to wear. "From what I'm seeing, a lot of these have Galactic headers. Makes sense because he was in Sinnoh, but what worries me are these." The teenager rose a finger and began poking at the hologram, which served the purpose of highlighting several clusters out of the still-populating mass in red. "Galactic somehow knew Jonah was coming."

"...bruh, everyone knew Jonah was leavin'. He made a freakin' tidal wave just to get out of port!" Came the voice of some unnamed scientist with an amazing accent.

"We also swore never to talk about that ever again," Nolan said with a shudder shared by half the room.

"They're dated about a week in advance," Ben deadpanned. "That means the conglomerate now has access to some kind of computer, or a psychic capable of actually seeing the future."

The implications of that did not bode well. Most of GRiP's forces were either slaves, zombies, or both, which meant that any psychic-types that they did have were utterly useless in regards to tactical measures. Something about Rocket's insistence that Psychic-types simply weren't the way to go, probably. But provided they did have one that they could actually use, the fact they could use it to predict the future was very bad news; the Resistance had psychics that could predict the future, but they all claimed that their predictions were utter shit if they pointed to a time more than a day forwards. Which made sense, since time had gotten all wibbly-wobbly without the Legendaries keeping it stable. It stretched, contracted, bent, and in some places reverted just to fast forward twice the time it went back. There was even a large area of desert that had become a prehistoric forest, directly across from an empty void of space where the planet no longer existed - or maybe it did, blurry and indistinct but pure and welcoming. And since no one wanted to think about what that might mean, the Resistance conveniently never had any staff who could go explore and/or research such places.

While the group of a dozen people and Pokemon sifted through the mass-produced papers detailing the report, they spent merely a small moment trying to either prove Ben wrong or to help find evidence towards that theory in a way they could use. They gave up soon after, focusing more on the report itself.

According to the scouting team, the peak of Mt. Coronet simply didn't exist anymore. There was absolutely no trace of marble to point towards the presence of Spear Pillar, and it had been that way before at least a thousand enemy grunts swarmed the area, both by land and by air. After that, the marks of battle were readily apparent, and the entire far right quadrant was an eerily flat circle that spoke of the Acting Champion's Zoroark having used Night Daze. Or rather, what portion of the expanse hadn't sunken inward. Unfortunately, the report wasn't complete as the psychic forensics experts - valued because they could turn their foresight into the past, in order to get clearer pictures - couldn't actually use their talents, because there was a massive amount of interference from leftover Dark- and Ghost-type residues. As the normal forces were Shadow-types, this meant that the conglomerate had to send out a lot of their 'purer' BioTechnology Enhanced Pokemon instead; this spoke of a very high-priority operation.

Whitney sighed. "The fact they couldn't get a reading probably meant GRiP also knew about Jonah's Ring. Why else would they send out non-Shadow types, and ones specifically meant to counter Psychics?"

"Mmh." Nolan's lips curled into a scowl. That pointed towards evidence of his own theory - that ring (as in what he was holding) meant something special, and in this case it probably pointed towards something happening that had to do with Ring (as in the Gardevoir herself).

Considering the report also said the scouting group had to reach the peak from the second-highest exit, as the peak had collapsed inward far enough that they didn't have a choice otherwise, high-ranked operation it had to have been. There wasn't any other explanation for the sheer amount of destruction. What's more was the fact that, in addition to the amount of bodies found by sifting through the pile of wrecked stone and rock, there were the occasional 'flashes' where the conglomerate's forces couldn't block out a point in time. One of those was faint image of a trainer holding some sort of weapon that could only be a firearm.

"Can we see the rounds?" Joey quietly asked.

Nolan nodded, trying to hold a brave face but failing as he lifted a ziploc bag. Inside were the only tungsten rounds that they could salvage, the perfect caliber for the Acting Champion's custom SMG. Considering the fact the Resistance had trusted Jonah with a nigh infinite amount of ammo for a complete selection of armaments, which included an M14 of all things, the fact that he would actually use his SMG despite violent decries of 'never needing it' spoke volumes of the fight he must have felt the need to join in himself. For a tactician who had to be drugged to get into firearms training, because he valued life too much to go that far....

"It's been three years since Jonah freed Arceus," Whitney started, "And since then he's done everything he could to help save humanity - not just us, but the so-called 'bad guys' too... for... whatever reason. He's stronger than I could ever be in that respect." Of course everyone suspected the reason: all of this was technically his fault for freeing Arceus, so he must have felt he had to atone.

"Stronger than all of us, to carry the burden he has for so long without breaking," the present Lucario said. He had blue chest fur instead of the normal tan, nubs instead of spikes because he had only evolved halfway, and his hair - yes, he had hair - kinda-sorta looked like a girl's. This was Camille, and while he was young and different, he was still a high ranking general for their Pokemon forces and a part of a secret project meant to give Pokemon powered armor, like the BTEPs but without the invasive nature of their upgrades. He was also - wait for it - a 'Newtype,' having sacrificed his greater physical potential for greater mental potential. But only Jonah and his Delta Project people had access to the details of what that meant.

Some of the anime producers of this day and age were members of the Resistance, obviously.

"Wait a minute... the hell is an 'Erupting Burning Finger?'" That same unnamed scientist said with a very curious tone.

Nolan snickered before sifting through the files until he found a folder labeled 'technique inspirations,' pointing and tapping the air until he could open a video.

"...you're telling me," Joey muttered, "That he got his Blaziken to do that? I mean, that's fucking awesome, but why?"

"Because no one expects it, and because it's freakishly effective," Rosa said with a grin. "He hasn't lost any battle in which he's had to use an anime-derived technique, because literally no one has any idea how to fight that. We've all tried, and we've all lost. It's honestly infuriating."

"Hey Nolan," Ben spoke up. "I found something in here with your name on it." Almost as if on cue, all of the files suddenly - finally - began to sort into recognizable clumps, images whirling and flying here and there as the computers finished the process of 'virus scan individual files before putting them back.' The end result was easily evidence of the Acting Champion's slight OCD, and the document Ben indicated was right at the top of a folder marked 'outsourced tactics.'

Nolan poked at it and blew it up. "In the event something happens to me, I'll probably leave behind a massive hint as to the cause." The green-clad Trainer blinked and held up the ring he had been rolling around in his off hand, before his eyes went wide and he kept reading out loud. "And if something happens, and you get this, that means it was something big that might or might not mean I'm considering myself dead weight, as in literally. In this folder is a complete collection of the techinques and ideas my Team and I have come up with. But be warned, some of these ideas are both bat-shit insane and probable given what resources the Resistance has or can otherwise get."

The entire room went silent at that. Okay, learning that Jonah freed Arceus was something that was okay, because Jonah promised he'd do everything he could to clean up after his mess - even though it wasn't his fault. Learning that he had sourced most of his techniques out of anime was okay too, because it looked amazing and was amazingly effective. Learning that he had a contingency plan for in case he got captured was something that made sense. But this? Learning that had made a contingency plan for in case he felt he was going to die? That made sense too, but to actually be holding the results of that contingency plan in the palms of their hands...

Joey slapped his hands down on the table, eyes wide. Ben looked, and he went similarly wide-eyed. "What."

"What?"

Joey widly gestured with his hands and blew up the document he got from Sanic's folder.

Then everyone went wide-eyed. "Ho. Ly. Shit."

They were the blueprints for the Gundam RX-78, and its upgrade into the Gundam Alex. But what made it ridiculous and which drew everyone's attention were the five pages of notes included with it, which outlined the facilities they needed to take in order to secure the needed resources. Included within were not just the directions on how to fabricate the parts, but also directions on how to fabricate the Gundarium Alloy they needed in order to make it a Gundam. After all, it was widely known that Team Rocket had access to giant robots, and that those three idiot white shirts used them so often that they weren't taken as seriously as they should have. But with anime being what it is now, and with the proof present in Jonah's tactics and techniques, the destructive potential present in these designs was....

Basically, shit just got real. Really real, more real than anime had any right to be.

Nolan pinched the bridge of his nose as Joey dived into the folder and pulled out blueprints for the Gundam Sisquiede too, which was captioned 'for Jonah's use, don't let him see these,' as well as the blueprints for the equipment needed to mass-produce the Methuss. If you have something as advanced as those in mass production, then given the rapid repair ability on each unit you'd have an extremely good army. Or at least that's how the theory went in Sanic's eyes. "This is insane," the green-clad Trainer grumbled. "But it's better than anything we have and, given it's insane, that means it'll work. Make it happen. What do we have to lose, besides everything?"

"Consider it done," Joey and Ben both chorused.

"There any other surprises in there?" Whitney said, massaging her temples and muttering something about ibuprofen. How the hell does a Sandslash even know how to build a 'minovsky ultracompact fusion reactor,' much less how to get those mass-produced too?

"Let's finish looking over what we got already before we delve into the stuff Jonah's team has. Given the mind-blowing shit his Sandslash has ready, I don't think I'm prepared for any more insane bullshit today. All in favor?" Nolan rose his hand, and everyone else just as quickly rose their appendages too. "Motion carried. Now, the report: what do we make of it?"

"Jonah got ambushed," Rosa immediately said. "It's the only way to explain the reason why so many forces converged on one spot, all of them specifically designed to negate his usual escape routes."

"Judging by the fact the cavern beneath him caved in, he and his team fought them to a standstill. Not without injury though, because why else would Jonah draw the firearms he swore never to use?"

"UH-" Nolan started, his face now a stark white. Slowly, he reached into the 'evidence box' and withdrew a feather: it was Shadow purple, but what got everyone else to go stark white was the fact it turned invisible if tilted just right into the ambient lighting. "Okay, I understand that the report said an Erupting Burning Finger was used to take down a very high priority target. But a Legendary?!"

"We're fucked," Camille bluntly muttered, "because that means GRiP's gotten into Altomare's secret garden and stole DNA of the Latis. And, knowing them, they've already figured out how to breed their own."

"None of Jonah's blood was found at the scene, though, so-"

Tink. Clatter clatter.

"Nolan?"

Sorry, Nolan wasn't here at the moment, please leave a message after the beep. 'Weegee' had just read the little footnote at the very bottom in small print that said forensics thought they had found heavy psychic residue concentrated in a single point in space, as well as certain instances of wreckage that appeared to be picked up and dropped or otherwise torn. They didn't think that it meant anything, and thus wasn't included in the official summary; as the green-clad Trainer's mind kicked into overdrive, only one conclusion could possibly have resulted in all of this, footnote included.

"Gardevoir were famed for causing black holes," he muttered out loud at a frantic pace. "The only reason one of them would be able to do that revolves around the prerogative of 'protecting their Trainer by any means necessary.' Combine that with the contingency plan we're holding and freaking out over, the report I got from Delta Project HQ concerning the last data we got from Jonah's feed, and the hint in the form of Ring's ring, Ring must've made a black hole big enough to affect the surrounding environment. The only way that could happen is if we have a literal singularity, and the only Pokemon Moves theorized to cause such have Hyperspace in the name. So if Ring used the fairy-type Hyperspace Hole in order to protect her trainer, and now Jonah's nowhere to be found, and he thought he was going to die right then and there-"

"Hyperspace implies travel," Camille pointed out.

Nolan slammed his hands down on the table, before dramatically pointing towards Camille. "OBJECTION!" Then his arms started flailing everywhere over-dramatically to emphasize his points. "Hyperspace is travel! That's what happened! Jonah must've gotten himself sucked into a use of Hyperspace Hole and ended up somewhere else!"

"How is that-" Joey started.

"Theoretically speakin'," the now-awesome unamed scientist said, "The last place Arceus was seen happened to be Spear Pillar. Then Arceus left, and all the Legendaries left with 'im. Arceus naturally would've taken Spear Pillar along for the ride, judgin' by its absence - but'cha can't just leave with so much without causin' a massive power vacuum, both figuratively with the war and literally given the eerieness we all feel when we look at those pictures."

"So you're telling me that Jonah's Gardevoir got him and his team sucked through not a black hole, but a wormhole?" Whitney asked in a flat tone. "One that leads directly to wherever Arceus fled to?"

"We know that Jonah is a fan of making the impossible possible," Ben pointed out. "And as of right now that's the only explanation that makes sense. The only other explanation that makes sense is that the black hole killed them all, but that's no good, because we would've found Jonah's team one way or another. He would've seen what was going to happen and both tried and succeeded in getting them out of harm's way somehow, which would mean we'd have evidence of their failure in trying to fight the Conglomerate."

"And right now we have nothing," Nolan concluded. "Other than the means to strike back in ways that they'll never see coming."

"Well, like Whitney said," Not-a-Youngster Joey said, "It's been three years; long enough for us to finally have come up with a giant ace in the hole."

"Assuming Sanic's stuff will actually work, you mean."

Nolan turned his attention back to the 'possible evidence' box, and pulled out another feather. A moment passed as the Trainer looked it over, trying to gauge just what kind of Pokemon it went to.

"...smells like Axe. Dark Temptation," came the voice of Hilda. The fact she was currently a scolipede in Trainer's clothing didn't seem to phase anyone either. "But what's weird is that it looks like a primary feather off a Reshiram's wings."

"Weird because it's black-" Nolan started.

"Looks more like a Dark Taupe to me," Joey interrupted.

The blond sighed. "Weird because it's 'dark taupe' or weird because it's from a legendary?"

"Both. Can I see that?" Hilda asked. Nolan obliged and passed her the feather, and she carefully turned it over in her claws while her brows lowered in concentration. Something didn't seem right. "We're going to have to run DNA on this to make sure."

"Assuming we can actually find someone who knows how to run the machines," Joey began to list off. "And amass the funds. And not get attacked. And-"

"Relax, man." Ben sighed. "We're building up our resources at a steady pace, we haven't had a potent attack in weeks from either side, and we finally have... well, this news. There's no way things could get any worse, right?"

Far away, in the depths of the ocean, a man cried out in triumph.

For he had discovered the remnants of New Island, and years of searching through wreckage finally uncovered everything he would ever need to become famous. Sure, when you look at it from an abstract perspective, it seemed like it wasn't that big a deal.

If you knew the significance of a perfectly preserved room, containing a broken cloning vat in the same room as an old, intact tablet - a tablet with a certain pink feline being's likeness engraved within, however....

(--o--)

"No," came Hilda's deadpan response. "Nothing could possibly go wrong."

"Startup sequence complete," A feminine voice chimed.

"Perfect." Came the voice of a male. "How are we with mass production?"

"Over three hundred units are completed, and the remaining estimate of four thousand and seven hundred are approaching the final stages of construction ahead of schedule."

"Good, good." The man's lips curled upwards into a vicious smirk. "I'll finally be able to teach those kids to finish the job."

Zero thought,

(--o--)

Whitney groaned. "Will you two please stop tempting fate? I swear to Arceus, you're going to make things so much worse."

"Pfft-" Nolan started, just to trail off into a humorless chuckle. "What do you think swearing to Arceus will accomplish?"

"Hey, maybe if we all take his name in vain he'll catch a cold!"

"It's worth a try. Besides, given the news, we need some way to raise morale despite the rumors that'll eventually come out anyway."

And so another day in the Resistance HQ wound to a close. As it happened, everyone went to sleep grinning because of how loose their tongues became, and how liberating it was to swear up and down without being judged. From that day on, June 29th was officially recognized as 'the best fucking holiday ever.'

Knocks rang against a door.

"Come in," came a quiet voice. It was low in volume, yes, but it didn't need to be loud to have its full effect.

"Sir. I have a report."

"Just leave it on my desk."

The faceless man nodded before gently setting the manilla folder down, and then politely exiting the room as quickly as possible.

"The best holiday ever," came the quiet musing. "...I suppose it is. After all, that's one less Champion I have to worry about."

The lapcat purred in response.

(--Ω--)

Roaring echoed out of the Everfree forest. This wasn't really an uncommon situation, but given the fact it was uncommon to find a Hydregion on the side of good, then you could easily blame the fact that nothing was common when ponies and/or Pokémon were involved. Simply enough, this fact was made worse because humans were involved too: two in the bodies of Pokémon, and one who's simply being himself.

Oh, and he happened to be in a state of medical emergency.

"Alright, you know the plan?" Michio said.

Doc Hemlock nodded. "I go out there and 'rescue' my Hydregion that the Guards attacked for no reason other than the fact he was causing a disturbance, and you escape in the confusion."

"And you?" The 'rark asked the stallion.

2nd LT. Jenkins sighed. "I'm supposed to lead you to the hut of the zebra shaman Zecora so she can give you medical aid. You're then going to then use me as a hostage in order to negotiate a meeting with a representative of my government, since the Legendaries of which you'd normally defer to appear to hate humans, and you don't want to risk them doing whatever it is they might do to you."

"And you're okay with this... why?" Jonah asked with a raised brow.

The stallion just shrugged. "You don't seem like a threat. And even if you were a threat, you seem like a pretty stand-up stallion... er, whatever you call male humans." And his entire Squad was composed of enormous assholes, so it was about time he got back at them somehow.

"Guy," Jonah said with an incredulous eyebrow raise. In fact, his normal raised eyebrow just evolved into a Dwayne Johnson Raised Eyebrow. "The plural of man is men, and the plural of woman is women. The prefix 'wo-' refers to the female gender. For younger humans we use the term boys and girls, and while the term 'guy' usually refers to a male, the word 'guys' is used as a gender-neutral term to refer to a group of people."

Corignis facepalmed. *Let's talk about grammar after we're in a safe place?*

"Sorry," the human apologized. "I get kinda verbose when I'm in life-or-death situations, in order to distract myself from the fact I'm dying!" That last word was stressed, and it resolved into more deep coughing. This time the blood was very visible, and it resulted in the human beginning to wheeze.

"Go now!" Hemlock hissed, honestly panicked, before he rushed off to rescue what was actually starting to sound like a Hydregion in pain. The Gardevoir, Zoroark, Blaziken, and stallion all shared a glance before the stallion set his jaw and began to lead the group away from the battle.

In order to help keep their stealth, Michio proceeded to cast an illusion around his Trainer, making his Zoroark-themed clothes shift and warp in order to result in the appearance of an actual 'rark. The ease of this made it clear that the human's clothing choice wasn't just for aesthetics, because this was a tactic that worked very well in the past and would hopefully continue to work now. Not that this was expressly needed, but together and posed like this, it was made rather obvious to any who looked on that the group were moving away from the noise. And when the others of the human's team arrived, Ring was the one who silently gave the telepathic 'all clear' to return them; in order to make the illusion believable, Corignis allowed himself to be returned as well while Azumarill had agreed to stay with Doc Hemlock for the time being, giving them a line via Ring to figure out what his condition was.

"" Jonah mumbled, ""

"" Ring deadpanned. ""

"" Jonah shivered. "<I'm beginning to feel cold, and this Lum Berry isn't helping. I need human medicine, and from what Hemlock says we're not gonna get any of that. But seriously? The closest we can get is a zebra shaman?> What the actual fuck is this place?"