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Group One:


The X-Scissor gouges the ground on Type: Null's approach, Ogerpon's best attempt to duck and weave around the attack intercepted by the instincts of the other legend, causing her to hiss out loud in pain behind her mask as the Super-Effective talons score the side of her body. Managing to avoid the worst of it, she spins to go on the attack again as her mask rotates from green to red. Mirroring the change in her visage, her style changes as well as she goes on the offensive again, her Ivy Cudgel spinning into view as she summons it with a lick of flames. Feinting above her head like she was going to bring the weapon down on the unwieldy headpiece, she alters course and strikes at the quadruped's midsection instead, slamming it into the things guts over and over again with precision. Type: Null may have been bred for battle, but Ogerpon had a lot more experience at it.

Meanwhile, the unknown monstrosity poisoning Tristen had been trying to make a beeline for what looked like a gunky blob stuck to the top of the ceiling, near the exit opposite of them. It was a nest of some kind, fragments and remains of people that had disturbed it previously as well as some of the other tubemates woven into the tar-like substance that made it up.

Despite the thing's great speed and agility, it was clearly not used to nor prepared to be running into anyone quite like the Snagems pursuing it. Blizzard would be able to effectively and easily leap up and snatch the 'hybrid', if you could call it that, and its intended prey out of the air with a little Psychic assist by Cera, tugging on the thing's limbs and weighing it down. As the group of all three of them begin to trend downward with weight and gravity, Amaranth's Braviary cuts across the group like a missile and sends the thing crashing amongst the tubes in a cacophony of glass and formaldehyde, allowing Blizz and Tristen to make it to the floor much more safely. The container they mainly smashed through on the way down seemed to have some kind of remains of an Aggron hybrid, the metal weakened by the chemicals in the tube and long storage. It was dead, the container little more than a mausoleum for it now as it spilled out across the floor with a slosh.

But there was no sense in wasting a perfectly good meal, the 'hybrid' clearly thought, lightly wounded by the Esper Wing it would slither forward into the light, revealing its hideous grotesqueness to the lot of them. It looked like a Greninja... mostly. But its body had been mangled and mushed together through the use of its Protean ability by Ein to force it to accept other Pokemon DNA on a cellular level, the usual result of a multiple Pokemon hybridization and a dire glimpse of what Cera's future could have been once upon a time. The sac in the middle of its chest, still glowing with Tristen's electricity, looked almost like the end of a Mareep's tail as it pulses, the frog crawling forward over to the dead hybrid's corpse. Its tongue slides out, the Ekans that made it up hissing as it chomps into the preserved flesh with a grotesque ripping sound into the armor plates. As the Snagems watched on in horror, metallic plates begin rising out of its skin on its shoulders and back, a pair of Aggron shaped horns piercing the skin and gracing its forehead as the simple act of consumption of the organic element allowed it to shift and evolve right in front of them - Protean taken to its most diabolic and demonic usage. It gurgles in something that sounded like pleasure as it turns its lidded frog eyes to its pursuers again, before energy begins coagulating at its horns and it launches a Metal Burst out in enormous arcs towards Blizz as well as the Hisuian Braviary, trying to exact a measure of revenge.

Group Two:



Darts is just as perplexed as Leslie is, but no less cautious as the 'HELLO' vanishes, one word at a time vanishing and reappearing to spell out a message in all caps for the Snagems to read. 'MY. NAME. IS. A.T.H.R.A. I. DO. NOT. KNOW. YOU. IT. HAS. BEEN. A. WHILE. IS. IT. TIME?'

"Time for what?" Darts half-whispers to Leslie, looking around them unnerved. The center area they were in were not stirring or changing, no ripples running through the floor. It didn't look like there were any cameras that could see them, but the Giratina hybrid's jacket shivers with the sensation that they were keenly being observed.

'TIME. TO. BEGIN.' comes the unbidden response, clearly able to hear the gambler despite his best efforts.



Crystal's presumption would bear fruit, as while the tile would depress slightly under her weight, sending a little ripple of motion through the room as ATHRA sensed another new presence, there is no massive pillar of force sending her hurtling up into the stratosphere. In fact, in exact opposite to that, the inside of the created world begins shifting, carving a new path out through the canyon to allow the Solgaleo hybrid easy access. Within a few seconds she could see Darts and Leslie standing in their little clearing, a new walkway presenting her a direct shot to them in a seemingly courteous fashion.

Group Three:



Support was going to be exactly what the Mega Evolved Ghost was going to need as the threat rounds the corner at a run, a massive unearthly howl filling the maze as a Mega Garchomp comes at the group at a dead sprint, an apex predator realizing its prey as it brings both scythes down with a massive Outrage burst, the impact exploding outwards as it smashes into the combination Protect and Spiky Shield. The thorns pierce its appendages but it seems unbothered, screaming rage and defiance as it attacks again and again and again, over and over attempting to break through while assaulting the Sableye. The Pokemon was incredibly strong and well-trained, and the reason why would click its way into view a few moments later. Cynthia's heels and the rest of her rounds that corner of the maze as she follows her ace Pokemon down the dead end, that same sick smirk on her face as earlier when she had them trapped in the gas chamber. "Well, well, well..." She coos at them through the box, her Pokemon huffing and snarling as it attacks again, sending debris flying as the Dragon attempts to smash the barrier. "We meet again."



As the fight had been brought to them, Spooky did still have a little bit of wiggle room, not being the main focus. The Ghost would be able to find the gap in the ebonite walls, a weak point made of ordinary stone, but right now it was directly to the left of where the Mega Garchomp and Mega Sableye were clashing in the maze. If the Snagems wanted to get back there and use it to get out of here they were going to have to do two things. Distract Cynthia and her Mega Garchomp somehow, and break that wall to get out of here. Otherwise, they were as good as captured having wandered down the end of this maze. "I thought you all said you wanted to do this the easy way..." The champion continues, slowly walking down the hallway taking her sweet time. "That would have involved staying in my little gas chamber Sub. You all know you deserve what's coming to you, why make it.... painful?"

Group Four:




As Primarina moved back towards the middle of the room with Monique, in the midst of dousing the fire, a very strange thing would occur. The flames would start to shrink back and diminish throughout their path to the middle of the study. Once the duo paused in the middle of the room, the fire would begin to flare up again - increasing in intensity and size proportionally as it had before, until the Finizen moves over to help, the flames dying down to their ministrations... until they pause to really pour it on, then soon enough the fire would be burning greater and hotter than ever, soon enough more than any two Pokemon would be able to handle.



The moments with Lucario leaping out of the Pokeball allowed Ulla and Lucario to be able to hang onto the receiver, but as they stand there again debating the receiver would begin to increase in weight, pretty soon it was going to be impossible for the duo to hold up again. Her mother was clearly saying something, but it was really hard to make out from the position of it heading to the ground. "We've stopped moving it's got better on our end, Ulla darling are you still there...? The phone piece was having almost a gravitational effect at this point as they stand still, driving them down into the carpet.



The combination of Sol's walking and Reno's sudden frenetic energy would all of a sudden start to pull the room back together, the distance between them all shrinking as they moved through the space. As a Psychic, the Co-Leader would have a very distinct taste of something like a warped Trick Room making up the fabric of the room they were in as he pressed and probed against it. The more he moved and started moving and adjusting things, little things like the fire would go down in intensity and the amount of space between each other and the exits would shrink. One thing was quickly becoming clear and Sol had ken it from their last statement - the more they moved, the more they interacted with the room WITHOUT standing still, the less they were affected by whatever was going on in here. There was a lot of ornate furniture, paintings, bookshelves, antiques scattered about all of them. It was time to see if Reno's ideas bore fruit.

A small, frustrated groan escaped Wren as their pursuer came into view. While he knew little of Cynthia, on a personal level, it was hard not to know of her Garchomp and it's battle prowess. That Pokemon was world-renowned for it's abilities on the battlefield as was the woman who trained it to be such a fearsome foe. **That** Cynthia was the one he was familiar with and she was standing before them now, bearing down like the weight of the sea upon a Staryu in the sand. He, however, was undaunted by her ferocity. Somehow. "The easy way was everyone working together and playing nice. You decided the hard way for us when you decided to lie and trick us." He asserted, standing behind Hemlock as the Cacturne struggled to maintain his support behind Poe's shield. Whispering to the Scarecrow Pokemon, he held his Artifact tightly. "I have an idea. The moment you get a chance, hit that stupid dragon with a Sucker Punch." He told the cactus. "I only need it distracted for a second." He insisted. He wasn't the one capable of breaking through that wall even if he was aware of it. But what he believed he could do is give them a momentary opening to do something to escape.

Hemlock nodded to Wren's direction and, wincing again as he struggled to keep up the shield and the facade of defense, he watched for a chance to strike back. The moment he saw it, he vanished in a flash, delivering a devastating uppercut to Garchomp's chin, aiming to knock it's eyes off the Snagems for just a moment. Acting the instant Hemlock disappeared, Wren took aim and fired three shots, sending wet clumps of mycelium foam flying toward Cynthia and her Pokemon. Two aimed at Cynthia, herself and one at Garchomp. The two flying toward Cynthia were intended to strike her Pokeball s, blocking them from her hands or to strike at least one of her hands and make grabbing another Pokeball harder. The one aimed at Garchomp intended to cover it's eyes. If any of the foam hit their targets, it would begin to send hyphae into their body immediately, leeching their moisture and nutrients to weaken them.

He hoped it hit Cynthia more, believing that if she were under the influence of the infamous Mister Mushroom that his foam would parasitize the spores within her. That just might allow him to purge them as it had done to much of the fungus he'd spent the last year working to clear out from Lentimas. Either of them being hit had a chance to give them some flexibility here, though, since the foam would begin to harden rapidly after contact, making removing it rather difficullt unless he chose to dispell it.

Crystal would look ahead of her, eyes narrowing as she started to see some of the message ATHRA gave to the others. Looking behind her briefly, the psychic’s eyes would glow brighter for a second as she hefted the hammer up cautiously, relocating it to her shoulder before starting in to join the others. Her blue eyes would keep on the bricks surrounding her as she stepped, getting a similar feeling to Darts. She would be much more calm about this, however, as her current assumption leaned into the walls having eyes. Many eyes. Once she caught up to the others, she would look dead ahead at the words, like she was staring at the face of the person speaking. “Is the plan to assemble something, or maybe disassemble something," she asked quietly, fairly confident their new 'friend' could hear her despite her voliume. "Since you remind me of an Ultra Beast I’ve encountered a few times in Ultra Space, and its code name was Assembly.” She was taking a shot in the dark, but between the bricks, this thing greeting them, and how it reacted to the various stimuli, she had to assume this was at least somehow related to that Ultra Beast.

Getting a brief realization that her allies probably didn’t understand what she was referring to, she’d speak up again, “STAK would be a small reference to what I’m mentioning here.”

Leslie would raise a hand as she heard the thing say it was time to begin. "I'm sorry, is your name an acronym or were you just making sure to spell it out clearly?" The hybrid asked, looking around cautiously as she spoke. Whatever this thing wanted to begin was not likely to be very fun for all four of them if it was something Ein had designed. "Is your name and what you wanna begin why you didn't immediately call us intruders and whack us?" Thats why she had been hoping it recognized them, some sort of independent system that had rebelled or something. Knowing the typical Snagem luck, it was just programmed to give a nice hello and make you feel safe for five seconds before you went into some torture.

----

It took all the motion, the fire fighting, and making sure to focus his senses on it, but Reno had managed to figure what the little sensation had been. It was almost like a Trick Room, but it appeared to be working inverse to what one would expect. Instead of reversing how kinetic energy you generated by your effort put in, it was reversing how much potential energy the things had in the vicinity of any minds within the space. "Everyone! Keep moving! Keep touching, keep adjusting things! Its like a Trick Room, but it works off of lack of movement!" Reno shouted, continuing his rush towards Ulla even as she seemed to be doing her best to hold still for the phone. But just running wasn't going to be enough to reach her before the gravity that was keying off her lack of movement might do some real damage. Thrusting his left hand towards the shelf that lined the hall, the slime appendage would immediately splinter into a web that attached itself to many of the books on the shelf. Giving a massive tug, he hoped to dislodge as many of the things as he could and drag them along behind him.

From his side, his Reuniclus would be hard at work doing similar, slapping paintings, scattering books, and shaking the shelves as he did his best to float alongside Reno. And in the main entrance, Nori the Finizen would give a little chirp before beginning to bounce around the front room and splash at the surrounding decor. Hopefully this all helped Reno as he coiled up and sprung forward, trying to knock Ulla over as soon as he was able to.

[Group One]

"Ghh! Let him go!"

"Got them!"

As Cera tugged at Tristen and Squall managed to pierce his way through, she and Amaranth would brace themselves for the course the monstrosity was put on while Blizzard and Tristen got some semblance of a safer landing. The pungent scent of formaldehyde as the glass shattered were the first thing to hit them all, followed by the sight of an Aggron hybrid that was surely long dead before they ever got here.

"Another hybrid..." Trying to keep her mind off of this room was surely failing for Amaranth once she got a good look at the hybrid's remains, let alone the shattered tube near it. A home she still wasn't fond of being reunited with, nevermind the fragile-looking metals serving as a sign of what she could've ended up like in another time, if she hadn't been so useful as a regenerating energy source. With all the tubes she saw, surely there were many more where that one came from, almost all of them surely perished by now. "Where's that thing we were chasing?"

Before Cera could respond, they'd see it. A Greninja, of a sort. But the way it was mangled and forcibly mashed, the sac glowing and pulsing as it crawled over to the dead hybrid, the Ekans doubling as a tongue and chewing right through the flesh and the whole thing shifting to accomodate the new DNA. XD002 might've been Ein's so-called perfection of Project Genesis, but there was little mistaking what surely had to have been either a building block or a very desperate backup plan for it. Whatever the case, she froze up as she continued to stare at it, barely muttering what her mind was screaming after yet another reminder of a past she thought she was over. "...another one? why's there another one? Why... why why why why why-"

Sharpedo's position meant little more than being further away from the monstrosity now in plain sight, and he wasn't any more okay about this new, fresh horror that seared itself into his mind instantly. The panicked growls as he tried and failed to comprehend any of this continued, leading into an equally panicked Screech in lieu of any real idea of what to do about that which shall not be named.

Amaranth wouldn't be able to find the words to ask what Cera was going on about either, too caught up in the horrorific sights and fairly sure the only appropriate response was an overwhelming amount of fire. And then more fire, just to make sure it didn't get back up. Squall would be knocked out of the air as the Metal Burst arced and blasted him, bringing the channeler out of her panic enough to rush and break his fall. "Crap, Squall!" Not being a light bird, she'd end up on the ground for it. "Project or not, this thing needs to go!"|

[Group Four]

Sol would see more proof of his realization as the room seemed to gradually bring itself back together, but Reno's remark gave the final confirmation he was looking for. "So that's how," he remarked, opting for a personal vendetta against every painting and antique he saw, knocking any and all of them down with impunity as he kept going about the room and towards Ulla. Ein's tastes sucked anyway. "You heard him! Vamos, vamos, don't stop moving! Our way out should be somewhere!"

Monique suddenly had her orders for how to move forward—and an explanation, not that it sank in in her current mental state. She started wrecking the room, joining with Sol as the group smashed paintings, had catfights with books, tossed copies of volumes like Scripting for Dummies: CGI, PHP, and Perl and The Ultimate Guide to Pickling and upended the sadly comfortable furniture. "Aniani! Keep moving, b***h!" she called out to her Primarina in a way that might make the Soloist Pokémon wonder what had gotten into her Trainer.

The pace was getting more frenetic as the room seemed to warp. Aniani was moving constantly, the space being turned into a disaster area as the Snagems worked feverishly. It seemed like the whole room was rippling in a dizzying fashion, responding to the perpetual motion machine that Reno, Sol, and the others were responding to.

And then it broke. The bookshelves flew off. The phone rang. And pop.

Monique staggered back, taking in the new space. It was a large and plain volume, far larger than the cozy study they had entered, reminding her somewhat of the Super Training Room with all the equipment off except the walls were plainer than a freshly built warehouse awaiting an occupant. Two Pokémon lay fainted in the middle. All that was in their area was a table and the receiver.

And all that was in their area was another receiver and a battery of scientists and adventurers. They looked like they were real. They might look back and see a young woman who might as well have stepped right out of their KlinkTot feed, looking for all the world like another pretty influencer, and her Primarina, similarly shocked, looking around with equal nervousness as she tried to process the new surroundings. "Riiiii..." Aniani's voice echoed off the walls, demonstrating just how much space there was as it bounced off the concrete and drywall.

At the table was an older woman who clearly knew at least one person in their party. Ulla. "You mean..." She looked between the two of them as she talked across the room. Even b***h Deluxe could sense this wasn't her moment to talk... Yet.