Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sub continued to look down at where Tristen once laid for several more seconds after Sol placed his hand on his shoulder and attempted to console the man. With the rain having ended before Sol approached the warm sun now shined down on them, however no words nor sun would make the Snagem leader feel better in this moment. Finally turning his attention away from the ground Sub would look up at Sol and reveal that even without the rain his face was wet, his eyes as well. "Boys are suppose to be...boys..." He said to Sol, the context of his comment not provided, no doubt the response from the whirlwind of thoughts he was dealing with in this moment. This wasn't just about Tristen, was it?

When Odd approached and spoke up Sub would straighten up a bit, rubbing his eyes and sniffling a bit as he collected himself. "No, no you didn't..." He said, wanting to add an 'I did' to the end of that but forced himself to banish the thought as he stood up. Taking a heavy breath he finally gave Odd his full attention and looked at him in the face, the man met with immediate shock as he noticed his eyes. "...you need a doctor, Odd...or a necromancer, I'm not sure which at this point." Sub said, then pointing to his own face. "Your face, you got a nasty gash and your eyes are...can you see okay? GRAY? We need Claydol again." Sub spoke aloud.

Over with Tsuki the student he addressed would give a nod and ran off to fetch the requested persons. It would take roughly ten minutes but the student would return with Nurse Miriam who was accompanied by Ms. Dendra and their Pokemon, the women going about to quickly tend to the wounded students. Director Clavell wasn't seen yet.

Clare would peer into the hole the Starmobile came out and would immediately spot some faint glowing mushrooms in a circle, the Fairy Circle Aden and Aile had recently disappeared into. That was a strange thing to see growing in a basement, on concrete floors.

Over with Eri, the girl wouldn't stir from her state of unconsciousness, Tsuki arriving to see her current state. It wasn't until Reno reached out and plucked the mushroom from her head did she do anything. "He's coming!" She shouted as she jumped up to a sitting positioning. "He's coming, he's coming, he's coming!" She repeated several times, each time more panicked than the last. Stumbling to her feet she reached out and grabbed Tsuki by the shoulders and now shouted her chant in his face for a few times before looking to Reno, or rather just the area he was standing in, her gaze appearing distant. "The Dark One is coming!"

As soon as Monique peered into the hole, following Clare, and made visual contact with the circle of mushrooms, she very loudly sneezed. "A-chooo!" Suddenly, the source of what had been fatiguing her became clear, just as it was starting to have its highest effect. It felt like something was taking her brain, her headspace, and wildly rearranging it, taking furniture and shoving it in the closet and pulling other pieces out of her mind—bits of her past, her friends, the other girls at Sub Rosa—and redecorating. Nothing was being tossed, no, but everything was being scrambled. Parts of her brain were lighting up instead of others, illuminating people and things Monique had not thought about in a long time. And all the illumination was Fairy pink.

If anyone was looking, they might have seen her start casting an Illusion, one that was radically unfamiliar to them—the first time she had gone disguised the entire fight. About the only clue that this was not anyone else was her dark complexion. Her shoulder-length hair swirled in shades of soft pink and cotton candy, she wore a pink top with the teal silhouette of a fairy, and she wore a flared miniskirt and pink thigh-high heeled boots.

~~~

Brixie La'Pixie huffed. Why was she even here? Nothing here was cute. Suddenly, she saw Eri, awake and animated to the point of being psychotic. Wasn't this who she was gonna...gonna...heal?

"Doll, you okay~?" she said in a voice timbre that sounded like someone had coated Monique in brown sugar, honey and pixie dust. Very, very pink pixie dust. "Brixie La'Pixie wants to help, ya know." She walked over and put a hand on Eri's shoulder.

The Zoroark hybrid's brain had been thoroughly reshuffled by her exposure to the fairy circle—so deeply, in fact, that her entire persona had been turned upside down. Nobody knew that Brixie—a shortening of Breanna Trixie—was one of Monique's co-workers at Sub Rosa, or that she sometimes wore outfits like this. And nobody knew how she might act in a moment like this.

Crystal tilted her head as Reno responded to her despondency, raising an unamused eyebrow. “Reno, there have been times when I wondered if my color should have been black and not white, for the superstitious folk.” She started to heave herself up, still exhausted from being drained, when Eri began on her rant. “...Wha?” She looked at the teen for a moment before turning to look at Sub, then back to Eri, still confused. Sub was the only one she could think of, but he’s been here? Who was she meaning by the Dark One in this case?

—----------------

Aile felt a tinge of relief as Aden wound up going through the Fairy Circle. That would be broken, however, when Tatooine was bombarded with the psychic explosives, Aile bracing herself as some of that pain was transferred over their bond. Was it due to the realm amping the link? Maybe, but it wasn’t her concern at the moment, especially when she eyed the circle. “s**t! Tati! Through the circle!” Tatooine shook herself off, not enjoying any of that, and immediately flew through the Fairy Circle, Aile right on her tail as she booked it over as well. There was no way she was staying with this thing if she could help it.

Aile would come out the other side landing on her Flygons back, making a note of Aden right nearby. “Hey, you okay Aden?” She wasn't paying any attention to her surroundings at the moment, worried about her teammate more than anything else.

Odd cocked his head to the side as Sub responded to him. The man was filled with a strange mix of emotions the Channeler couldn't place, though he couldn't sense whatever it was. He could only pick up on things that were actively malicious or extremely negative as far as emotions went, after all. But whatever was going through Sub's mind was coming through in his voice and making it very clear the man was not ok right now. "I'm fine." He assured Sub. "No pain or anything." He added in the hope it would reassure Sub, though it likely had the opposite effect. "Can I see?" He paused for a moment and looked around. All of the Snagems were there, their bright pops of color amid the whiteness easy enough to pick out of the empty landscape. "Well enough, I suppose. Everything looks a little weird right now but I can see all of you guys and all of the students that haven't made it out yet." He explained, rather roughly. "Can't say quite as much for the environment, though..."

It was at that point that something caught his attention. Two people who had disappeared earlier in the day had suddenly reappeared: Aile and Aden. Where had they been and how had they just reappeared like that? "We can talk about me later. I just picked up on Aden showing up and it feels like he's afraid. Very afraid. We should go check on him." He announced, starting to walk in the direction he could sense the young hybrid. He stumbled once or twice before he started to pick up speed a bit, still not running and stopping as his feet hit pieces of rubble as he moved around them.

~Sterling, you should listen to him and see the doctor.~

~I don't have time for that right now. There's still something going on here. I can feel it.~ Odd replied to the Shedinja's spiritual urging.

~You're going to cause yourself even more harm. I beg of you, take your leader's advice and leave the battlefield. There are plenty of others that can help!~

Odd turned to Cadenza at this point and glared at the Shedinja, tears at the corners of his eyes. "I can't think about that right now... Just let me do this! I didn't go through everything I did to train and get stronger just to turn and run because of something like an injury."

~Sterling, I-I-~

"Am worried about me. I know. But I need to see this through before I see a doctor." Odd continued, turning back to where he'd sensed Aden, the bright pop of the hybrid's soul against the expanse of white in his field of vision was getting closer.

That was the point where he heard Eri's almost frantic screaming about "the Dark One" and paused. "I've heard Sub use that name before... But who else besides us would know it? Or call him that, for that matter." He questioned, looking around for a moment, trying to follow the sound of her voice until he spotted a familiar soul, Tsuki, it looked like, and what he assumed was Eri beside him. He wasn't familiar enough with the strange Team Star girl to recognize her soul without the context clues of the moment. Or her screaming voice coming from that direction. "Huh... That's concerning." That was a level of fear on par with what he was feeling from Aden. Maybe even greater. What the hell was going on and who was she talking about?!

~~~~~~

Clare would, indeed, spot the Fairy Circle down below, though they wouldn't recognize it for what it was. "Um... Anybody know why there's a weird mushroom circle growing in the basement? I'm pretty sure that's not normal for a building this big. Or old."

They would be a bit caught off-guard by the sudden illusion cast by Monique and while the pair had spent quite a bit of time together in Monique's world before being thrown here, apparently, Clare's lack of memory made the illusion just as much an unknown person to them as anyone else for a moment. Though, somehow, that name sounded familiar. Was it someone the two had known from that world, an alter ego Monique used for work or something else entirely? The hybrid racked their brain trying to remember but nothing came up.

"I don't think that's normal." They repeated aloud before releasing Visage from her ball and requesting the Dreepy's assistance in getting down. The tiny Dragon couldn't carry them far but she could keep them from falling fast enough to shatter. So the glass hybrid jumped into the hole with Visage holding tight to their one wrist and pulling with all her might against gravity. The descent was quick but thanks to Visage's effort, they arrived on the ground below without their body being destroyed and promptly approached the circle to investigate. It looked like others had been here already, though it was hard to say if that was the people with that giant vehicle that seemed to have come up from here or if someone else had since come by to look into where they'd come from ahead of themself.

[Ruchbach Squad Base, Paldea]

Ortega listened to Aden's initial questioning of the ring and the apparent Starmobile he had helped send to the academy, the young Fairy Channeler grinning as Aden began to realize a few things only for his moment gloating to get cut short as Aile and her Flygon fell through the Fairy Ring next. "What? Another!? How many more of you can I expect!?" Ortega demanded to know. The boy would then c**k an eyebrow at Aden's demand that they destroy his Fairy Ring, the grunts around them laughing in response as Ortega stayed silent for awhile and smiled.

"Now why would I do that? I have another Starmobile to send through. You know what they say about double tapping for good measure!" He said with a laugh, joining in with his grunts. His hound growled back at Aden's Umbreon initially, however something made it stop suddenly, the two Pokemon locking eyes and exchanging a look of dread as the bread dog realized that the Umbreon's trainer wasn't playing. The Dachsbun would turn to bark at its trainer, to implore he listened to the strangers but it was too late for that.

The glow of the Fairy Ring had almost faded away, the last bit of the ground reforming as the portal shrunk down to the size of a pine hole. Another second and it would be completely shut, denying anyone or any thing from passing through. Unfortunately for them they would not be blessed with another second. Shooting up out of the pin hole of a portal came an incredibly long and skinny strand of spaghetti-like energy, this energy forcing the portal to stay open as it passed through. The 'energy spaghetti would begin to collect in the air in a rapidly expanding ball of what could only be described as energy yarn, its coiling erratic and without purpose.

Ortega would immediately notice the thing coming from the Fairy Ring, recoiling along with his grunts. "What is that!?" He shouted, pointing his scepter at the growing ball of 'yarn'. Soon the 'yarn ball' would warp and wobble as it became one single blob of energy instead of a coiled strand. The Ziton was here, in Paldea. The Fairy Ring it came through now closed as the mushrooms surrounding it now looked aged and dried out.

Without another second the Ziton would unleash a pulse of invisible energy which would fill all those nearby with a sense of dread and horror, every single one of the grunts immediately fainting as their minds were far too weak to even consider the horror. Ortega however seemed a bit stronger as he just fell to his behind and looked up at the Ziton in terror, still conscious but paralyzed by fear. His Dachsbun however resisted the Ziton's influence, finding the courage in its little doggy heart to step in front of its trainer and bark threateningly at the strange entity.

Having no interest in these children, Aile, or any of the Pokemon here, the Ziton turned its attention back to its prize; Aden. With an unearthly cry that one could somehow taste the Ziton went on the attack, slamming its form onto the ground and splattering against it. Now spread out on the ground the Ziton would rush across the ground and attempt to get underneath Aden and if not stopped would attempt to surround Aden with itself, ensnaring him in its form so that it may rip his mind from his body.

Eri was broke free from her paranoia induced screaming when Monique approached her, the young girl spinning around and looking like she was going to deck Monique square in the face however stopped herself immediately upon seeing the hybrid. Maybe it was her jarring appearance or demeanor but Eri was snapped back to reality as she looked 'Brixie' up and down before turning away and clearing her throat. "Sorry..." She mumbled as she tried to gather her thoughts.

"The Dark One, a mythological figure spoke of in many ancient tales across the world, the exact literary origin unknown. The Dark One is said to be many things depending on the tale he is found in ranging from a primordial personification of evil, to a Black Knight that cast darkness across the world from the back of his ghostly steed, to an alien wizard from another world. It's also a nickname dear leader Sub likes to use. GRAY explained to Tsuki.

Hearing Tsuki address her she flinched at the mention of a 'he', specifically the 'he' Tsuki was asking about. "He did it...but he's not the Dark One...but the Dark One is coming!" She started to say calmly before focusing on the Dark One again and yet again resumed shouting. Looks like that was going to be a trigger for her. Her screaming continued as the others kept mentioning the Dark One causing Eri to grab her own head and squeeze her eyes shut tight. It was only when Reno mentioned the Dark One being dead did she open her eyes and look to Reno, slowly lowering her hands.

"You..." She said aloud as she looked towards Reno. "You feel like him." She said only in her mind, though not saying it aloud was not a conscious decision, she was physically silenced by something she sensed within Reno. Peering deeper into her psyche, now that she was freed from the mushroom puppetry, Reno could detect an incredible amount of fear and paranoia in her, all of it about things that seemed trivial but to her were very dire. Someone had manipulated this girl heavily, sowed so much doubt, uncertainty, and anger in her. They preyed on all her insecurities and baseless fears and everyone knows there is plenty to find inside a teenager.

One of her biggest fears was that of Snagem and fear that they would hurt her, her friends, and her home. From what Reno could find not even Eri truly knew why she felt like that about Snagem, nor did she really know much about them, but there was an intense anger towards them deep in her subconscious that was clearly out of place. Digging around more he could feel it, the presence of the one her spoke to, it was buried deep in her mind and yet he could see no psychic source for it which left only one logical conclusion; the source was physical. He may have removed that mushroom but there was still a lingering physical source that no doubt would reform itself in time and cause her to act out again. She needed medical help to remove the fungus infecting her brain.

There was also one more strange thing; a memory, though not hers. It was the memory of an unknown individual but if Reno looked into it he would see this memory showed himself as a boy, buried in the collapsed ruins of Snowpoint Temple with only his Abra to keep him company. Was there someone else there watching him? The memory would be cut short as Reno was alerted to a very alarming presence which forced his Psychic mind to pay attention; the Ziton. He could feel it, distant but it was here, in Paldea.

"I feel...dizzy..." Eri said once Reno was out of her mind, swaying slightly before she fainted completely, hitting the ground if no one caught her.

Sub said nothing during all this, overhearing the comments about the Dark One and himself. He had his ideas and theories but wanted to verbalize none of them. Once Eri fainted the Snagem leader sighed and turned to the strange Monique. "Monique...er...Prixie? Can you take her to the nurse's office? Find a bed to lay her in and why don't you chill out there too? It looks like you need to take a rest yourself." Sub suggested to the hybrid.

Sighing he turned to Terashi, Abby and Leslie, should she have freed herself already. "Ter, Abby, Leslie, think you three can work on dismantling the Starmobile? Teleport the pieces out of here and to Mt. Silver, I'll take care of properly disposing of them later, for now I don't want anyone scrapping it for the technology." He asked the trio.

Looking around again he noticed two persons missing. "Where is Aden and Aile?" He asked no one in particular. That was when he overhead Clare and watched her drop down into the hole in the ground, his eyes going wide. "A circle of mushrooms!?" Sub repeated as he ran over to the edge of the hole and bore witness to the Fairy Ring, his face going pale. "Clare! Get away from that!" He shouted at her. He knew what it was but he wasn't sure on how it worked, the mechanics of it beyond his expertise, he just knew they weren't to be toyed with and yet Team Star was doing just that. Not only did they obtain highly sophisticated and dangerous technology but also ancient magical knowledge of the natural world.

What was going on here? "Sol! Where is your son!?" He shouted at the Ho-oh hybrid. His gut told him that he already knew the answer to that question as he looked down at the Fairy Ring.

“Oh cool, so like the Poke-Devil.” Tsuki said in an offhand tone before looking at Reno, Odd, and his SNAG that GRAY was speaking through. The looks on their faces and the lack of an immediate quip from their resident AI meant one thing: this wasn’t something to be taken lightly. “Cool, can you save a file onto my SNAG? I’ll have to read more into that when I got a sec.” He listened further while Eri spoke in and out of her lucid state. The person who had done whatever was done to her, wasn’t this Dark One, but he WAS coming.

Tsuki looked at the ground while he pieced things together. “So not The Dark One, but rather A Dark One is coming here. That could explain the attack on Sub- whoever ‘he’ is mistook him for one of those ‘drown the world in darkness’ types who shared that title and told Team Star to do something about it.” He said aloud, partly to himself but also to any other Snagems who might know more than him here. Instead of pressing for more answers, he waved over at Nurse Miriam. “Hey Ma’am! I think this one might have a concussion!” He called out when Eri fell, moving to catch her if no one moved first and figuring they could always question her further once she didn’t seem so rattled. Interrogating her any further in that state felt wrong, at least to him.

But who would be so desperate to manipulate a bunch of kids into violent action and what would they get out of it? There was no way they’d pose a genuine threat to any of the more experienced battles of Snagem unless they caught one of them by surprise and alone. Why bother conscripting kids into their scheme? This was all over Tsuki’s head and without more information to reflect on he’d be stumped.

Aile stared at the emerged Ziton, her stomach just about dropping as she watched it reform and attack Aden, ignoring everyone else in the area. The trap was supposed to be a human trap, not from some sort of otherworldly abomination! Her breath would keep in her chest, only breathing the most shallow of breaths. Should she have stayed back and stalled it further? Yeah, she would have been trapped, but maybe that thing wouldn’t have been able to tear through. Small price to pay in her opinion.

Aden calling out to her would snap her out of it, getting pissed off that he told her to run and leave him alone. “What?! Putain de merde! Like hell I’m leaving you to fend that thing off on your own!” Nudging Tatooine, hard to snap her out of the fear haze, Aile would take out her SNAG from her pocket and just set out to open call everyone.



Not bothering to see if anyone was responding or coming, she’d practically toss the SNAG as Tati took flight, the woman bringing out another Pokéball just in case. “Tati, Dragon Breath that thing!” Taking a deep breath, her dragon would exhale a gout of royal blue flame, trying to stall out whatever this thing was. At least until others would show up. Hopefully they did.

—------------

Crystal narrowed her eyes, listening to GRAY mention this supposed Dark One that wasn’t Sub. That… might not have been a bad thing to look into. Maybe go exploring for texts and lore about them, if she felt so inclined. However, that would come later. As her ears perked up when Sub started panicking over Aile and Aden being missing.

Then came the call from Aile. She could feel what might have been an approximation of her stomach just fall, ears going back flat against her head and eyes widening. “No. Nononononono,” she muttered, realizing what must have been chasing and targeting Aden. Although she had just stood up, she immediately crashed back down, bringing her knees tight against her chest. “Not again, no, no, not again. We can’t meet them again, we can’t. We want to keep existing. We want to keep existing.” There wasn’t any rocking, but it was quite clear the galactic cat woman was not in a good place with that news.