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Reno would give a small nod to Crystal as she processed exactly what he could provide. "My generous interpretation is that it was something too many of us would spring on if he straight said what Darts was doing. My pessimistic one is that he's somehow decided Darts is going to be his secret police." Taking another bite as he contemplated, he would begin to spin a few gears. So far it seemed like they were alternating their selections for interrogations. Bouncing between members who were liable to be hostile and ones that would seem like an easier softball. Trying to avoid too much pressure on someone in their interrogation team?

He wasn't going to get anywhere past that. All he had was the ones selected and the fact only Sub had been brought back. Maybe he should keep on the lighter subjects. Like the one his brain had inadvertently brought. "Also, uh....sorry on the hair thing. I think I crossed a wire, mistook like a weave or extension for a wig, and then my brain went off."

Crystal shook her head with Reno’s assumptions of what Darts was doing, remembering what the folders Apolla and Cera peeked into. And she did catch a glance of them, too, if she had to be honest. “He had geological maps of Orre. Apolla got curious about some of the mail that had come in for him, after he decided to dip for a second and leave Cera, Apolla, and I to watch it all. Apolla, predictably, couldn’t help herself and decide to get into it, with Cera looking over her shoulder. It was all topological maps and seismic data. So, it can’t be just the secret police thing.” She put a finger to her lips as she thought about that, finding it odd. “Maybe not secret police per say. Secret something, though. As secret as you can get being a Giratina hybrid, anyways.

“Extensions would be… possible? Maybe?” She looked up, trying to think about that. “How that would work when my hair is all miniscule stands of metal, though… Light, having this weird body is fun,” she snarked, looking a bit disgruntled, actually. “I’ve been in this one way longer than my original one, but it still feels… A little off, you know?”

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Aile turned to look at Sol, tilting her head. She remembered that a bit… Though, she had to admit, she felt like she needed to walk on eggshells when she first got back, which also influenced her actions then. The woman would close her eyes and sigh, shaking her head. “That… felt more like a mere falter, but yeah. Let’s hope there’s not a next time, though. I’m not sure if I’d get the option of location that time, either.” She gave a glance to Tatooine, though she wasn’t looking at her trainer anymore.

Aile would follow Tatooine’s gaze over to the Type: Null, heading inside for… her, it looked like. Well. The Flygon’s growling would grow louder the closer it got, not liking how unnatural it felt to her, and the fact it was getting closer to her trainer. “Tatooine. It hasn’t attacked anyone else yet. Let’s not give it reason now. Why don’t you return to your Pokéball for a bit? I’ll be fine, I promise.” Rubbing her Flygon’s snout with her true hand, she would recall Tati with her sand hand, though the dragon looked none too pleased about it. With Tati recalled and the chimera pushing her forward, she would begin to walk, looking ahead to Agent WHITE. “I’m going, I’m going. No need to be so rough.” Almost subconsciously, how she held herself changed. She put her hands in front of her, folded together, and straightened herself out, holding her head almost high. Maybe it was nerves, but she was going to try to hold onto some amount of dignity, like she was taught oh so many years ago growing up. What was that she said about looking like a lady from a few days ago?

Aile would sit down in the chair, doing her best to mask her discomfort at being in here like this. She’d still cross her legs one on top of the other and rest both of her hands on her knees, cocking her head slightly as Looker began speaking. “Alysandra is too much of a mouthful to say all the time. And too proper for my sort of reputation.”

She would sigh as she was regaled with a brief summary of her past. She couldn’t help but agree with Looker on his point Snagem of taking her back, something she was also unable to completely comprehend. But the small jabs with her recent adventures and training, she couldn’t help but frown. With everything she’d been through, wasn’t she allowed to have some semblance of normalcy and calm every once in a while? Arceus, she should have stayed in Mossui for the festival…

Sighing again as she was finally asked proper questions, instead of a slight monologue, she would look down and think for a second before answering. “I could tell you both, the second time, I full well expected to be left for dead instead. Anyways, I’m sure it should be in your notes already, considering just how much you already know even before my Snagem history, but I joined around five years ago, when Snagem first entered Kalos. I found my way into one of their shipments coming in and got curious about these guys. Whether or not I count that among my stupid decisions that led me to this point, I currently don’t know.” The woman would then lift her left hand to count, trying to recall the last time she was in Kalos. “Maybe a week or two after Black City, that was the last time I was in Kalos that wasn’t in some sort of transient fashion. I needed to wrap up personal business with what was left of Flare… and one at-the-time Shadow Zoroark.” She blinked for a second as she looked like she just remembered something. “Oh, uh, maybe not that. Uh, we were in the Fairy Realm as well for part of this, but we returned to fight Zera and Shadow Mewtwo, to keep the damned thing from just ending or poisoning all life as we know it with the Shadow Virus. If you count that one as being in Kalos.” The woman would give her own shrug to the Interpol officer, resting her left hand back on her knee. “Either way, I haven’t done any sort of remotely notable activity in Kalos since then.”

"Criminals they may be, heck lies they may tell, but sometimes you can extract kernels of truth for a lie, miss Essentia. Let her tell her tale. We'll decide if it's true or not. We'll get back to her connections to Kalos in a bit." Looker said in response to Essentia.

"Now then, it's interesting that you mention Zera." Looker said, suddenly becoming very interested in the mention of the aforementioned Weezing hybrid. "Can you tell me a little bit about Zera? The team's history with her? Is she alive or was she another...casualty...of Snagem's actions?" The man asked, suddenly taking a flurry of notes. Why did the mention of Zera set him off so much?

"Oh and, just because I am one a schedule here and need to get through the rest of the ground I'll give you another question to marinate one and answer for me after this one. Could you tell me what you were doing in Orre during your exile? You were there for a good while according to my sources but as you know Orre isn't the easiest region to get information out of. Seems like you made some friends there too, didn't you? More Snagem sources?" Looker asked Aile.

A leer would be shot Essentia’s way, the woman growling. “No, I didn’t. If I could have gotten away with not going then, I probably would have. The further away from me my family is, the better. With my past and everything I’ve done? The less I interact with them the better, the safer they should be. And what better way to stay away from them than for myself to not be in Kalos?” Aile might be deluding herself with that, but that’s what she believed currently. Regardless, Essentia did hit a small nerve there. “Now, do I know if anyone else entered into Kalos after that? No, I don’t pay attention to the comings and goings of every member on their personal missions.”

Huffing as she tried to calm herself, Aile would think on Looker’s next questions. “Zera… No, she’s not among the living anymore. I think she actually perished in the Fairy Realm. Good riddance, though. She was malicious, and cared nothing of anyone else. She possibly could have been Ein’s successor if she had lived.”

“And then Orre? Six months, give or take.” The woman shook her head. This was easy enough for her. “And that was right after they had captured me during my betrayal arc, if you will. So no, no contacts for Snagem. I had no contact with them after getting unceremoniously dumped in the desert.” Aile would give a bitter chuckle, recalling the time. “This actually loops into when I rejoined them, because the incident on Citadark Isle is when I was reunited with them. I took what was supposed to be a quick job in the under, something that paid nice, and it was a trap to capture me instead. All to bait Snagem to Citadark.” She looked away, frowning. “I honestly didn’t think that they would show. Why would you come to a traitor’s aid, seriously?” Aile would bring her gaze back to Looker, shrugging again. “But, yeah. Citadark Isle was when I was next reunited with Snagem. And the old man that gave me room and board? No, he does not associate with Snagem specifically. Only the couple of times, and one meet up with him in Galar was just happenstance as he was visiting his home region.”

Giving looks between Kess and Essentia, Aile would roll her head around before looking to the detective once more. “Anything else you want to dredge up?”

Upon Aile bringing up Zera, Kess, who up until now had been pretty quiet, lets out a derisive huff. "Oh right, the young girl that you lot did SO much to attempt to help from walking down that path, huh? And now you're here trying to act like you all were the good guys for brutalizing her, driving her insane, and killing her. What did you all do to try and save her? She was odd, and she was troubled in the head, I wouldn't even say I liked her. But instead of trying to help her, you killed her. Just another disposable person for y'all to throw away. I shouldn't be surprised though, birds of a feather." The Zapdos hybrid had the same abject look of disgust on her face as when they had been questioning Blizz earlier, revulsion etched into every crevasse of their face.

--



"You've seen him before?" Darts asks, tilting his head mildly to watch a retinue of guards walk by, clearly on some kind of control as they traipsed through the main room. Even though the two Snagems were collared, they were giving the pair a wide berth, no doubt due to their notoriety. Not like they needed to get involved, with the power situation being what it was and Agent WHITE, along with the insta-kill collars, there was no way Blizz or Darts could do more than jump a couple of them before they found themselves needing slot machine coffins.

"I'm..." The gambler has a very pregnant pause, as if weighing in his mind how much he could get away with telling Blizzard. Given the history between the two, it was quite out of the ordinary for Darts to shy away from telling the Articuno hybrid anything unless it was for some kind of mischief. There's no real sense of levity in his voice, however, as he finishes: "I'm quite sure that's not the case. You're not wrong on one count, though, they do FEEL quite a bit similar. I noticed as soon as we couldn't sense his energy." Peeking around the corner to look at the looming giant in front of Sub's room, he frowns. "I wish we could get these collars off, then we could really tell. You and I are two of the few to go toe to toe with that monster and live... not like we didn't get our rears handed to us."

Darts's reply warranted yet another need for a eyebrow to raise. That was oddly hesitant out of the Giratina hybrid. He was wanting to dismiss it for some reason, and while I had to admit that my guess was going on a bunch of coincidences, it was a little weird out of Darts to let his words come out as such, his recent attitude shifts from being a part of the Dragon clan aside. "It wasn't just us. It literally took half the team to wrangle him. But what got you convinced that its not him? Blindsiding and collars aside, it wasn't like Kess was going to take all of us on alone. Hell, it would have took her to take me on alone. What of you? Sub? Reno? Freth? You really think a few guys in expansion suits was going to cover it? I sure as hell don't. They needed a bit more firepower than that just in case and who else could they have gone to? That list is absurdly small."