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“Alright, while you look through that, I’ll do some of my own looking. See if I can’t track down where Ogerpon and that Type: Null ran off to. Hopefully they went to a way out of here.” I said, shifting Tristen a bit so I had a better hold on him. “Just hang on, Tristen…” I would then make my way off, trying to scour for anything out of the ordinary, even so much as a way out of here.

As the others scoured for information or a way out, Null found itself in a precarious situation with the Oni well on his case. Unable to defend itself that well as it tried to make its way down the pipe, the artificial Pokémon found himself getting entangled by the vines. Type: Null instinctively latched down with its claws, trying to not succumb to Ogerpon’s stunt but then yelped once the force was too much to withstand. The Pokémon found itself back where he started, slammed back into the air vent. Null pushed itself back onto his feet, shaking his head, having the feeling of whiplash with it forcefully flung in such a fashion. Well, the good news was that it was back inside. Bad news was…it wasn’t as timid about fighting back anymore now that it wasn’t going to plummet to its doom. As soon as Ogerpon was back in herself, Null would lash out, empowering its claws for a Crush Claw, going to pin Ogerpon down and break this Oni. One way or another.

[Group One]

"Of all the times to not even have a Pecha Berry to our name... and I didn't think to take any of the few supplies Monique and I did get," Cera lamented, looking back at the computer.

"Hard to travel anything other than light when you're running for your life," Amaranth added, still tapping away. "All I have's whatever I could fit in a pocket. So, you know, mostly Pokeballs... ah! Here we... are..."

As she skimmed the list of files and notes, the first ones to catch her eye were the ones on herself and Cera. Then XD002, S-22... her eyes would shift to see the stack of CDs before she made a point to save looking through anything more personal for later. Taking a deep breath, she'd look into the notes about the failed subjects. "Guess that really was more than a number... er."

As soon as she got to S-17, she'd stop, recognizing Agent White's appearance from all the glimpses within the past week or so. "Cera, you're... seeing this, right?"

The Mew's jaw had dropped as it was, stunned silent for a moment. She wasn't quite sure who- let alone what- Agent White was, but the idea that he was part of Ein's experiments never crossed her mind before now. "Yeah, I am... and he seemed pretty alive to me when we fought him."

"...there's gotta be more, what about this file?" She'd look at XD002's file next, Cera grimacing as the video played. That was certainly the Ein she remembered, alright. Mad science, cursing those in his way and all. No Snagem involvement unlike what SWIPE's info suggested, unless one wanted to count her DNA being used against her will as 'involvement'.

"...Ammy, think we can take this info to go?" Cera spoke up after the video ended. "We don't have a lot of time and I'd... rather not keep looking at any more of Ein's horrors than we need to."

"Right, yeah... let me copy it over. This might be our best bet against the stuff SWIPE's claiming they dug up." Without another thought, Amaranth had taken one of the CDs and put it into the drive after dealing with the dust. No sooner than she'd started the copying process had a certain sheep made herself known, bleating and forcing her arm to move is response. "Ah! Hello there," she said, curiously looking at the Flaaffy putting herself between her and Cera. Having to wait for the console to finish, she'd gently rub at one of the sheep's ears, hoping to avoid potential shocks.

"Can't say I blame wanting a little comfort after everything... I know I stuck really close to Sub and Sol after they got me out."

"Probably better than me sitting out in Mt. Battle because it was the only place that felt safe. Confused, scared... doubt you'd have anywhere to go either, huh?" After a few more seconds of ear rubs, her free hand would get a Heal Ball out of her pocket before letting it expand and holding it out. "You don't have to stay with us, but this place isn't safe and we need to find a way out ourselves. So if you want, we'll make sure you're taken somewhere that is."

Regardless of Flaaffy's decision, the crash from Type: Null going right back through the vents into the room would catch their attention, Sharpedo gesturing towards it as Cera looked over. Just in time for the fight to continue, too. "I think we found where they went..."

"Blizz, that one was caught, right? Can't it be recalled?" Of all the times Amaranth wished a computer would work a little faster here, this would certainly be one of them.

[Group Four]

"Ah, you're back with us," Sol remarked, noting the shift in Monique's voice returning to normalcy. His focus otherwise remained on the hurting Pokemon, grateful for what Reno and the researchers could manage. "Unfortunately, I can't say field medic's a hat I'm terribly equipped for either..." He wasn't sure how much the efforts would stabilize either of them, let alone the fine balance between that and them being forced to bring the Trick Rooms up again, but he'd stand back up as the conversation continued.

"Even if they'd be used against us, it's still proof and information worth having," he commented after Reno's dismissal. "Can't exactly guarantee any of the others having similar luck when we don't know what rooms they ended up in. Still, I agree the safest solution for all of us would be to travel together. Limited info or no, you know more of this tower than we do, and we know more of Ein's machinations. And as a bonus, it should assuage some parental concerns if this is agreeable. Anyway, as for these two..."

Gently, Sol would lift Slowbro to their feet. "Iffy as their survival is, they're probably best off with us too. Collars like those might force them to try putting the Trick Rooms back up too... with their weight, it may be better avoiding the risk altogether and getting them into a ball after all. Either way, we better get moving sooner rather than later."

Running from Cynthia, never thought he would do that. Deo would be running to the illuminated area, X-ray vision active. The area was well lit for Deo. This area was too illuminated for a normal thing. He would sit and access the computer. The cipher was a code for him, and he would not touch the keypad unless.... "Sub, Do you have an idea on what is needed to access this? Or are we going to unplug it and pray to what powers that be that we don't die?" Deo said with uncertainty. His arms in a triangular fashion holding his chin. The look of determination on his face and the look of concern in his eyes.

Group One:


The door Blizz first opened would be... confusing to say the least. It looked like it led to a solid column made up of individual squares, sliding top to bottom and side to side at random intervals. Eventually, he'd get a peek inside as one of the broken pillars rotates past, catching a glimpse of a hell zone with Leslie, Darts, and Crystal far off in the middle of the massive room doing their best to not get eliminated by Ein's defensive AI. Certainly not the easiest way out, considering Tristen's condition but it had to be nice to see some familiar faces. They were getting pummeled by warping and transforming stacks of pillars was the most the Articuno hybrid would be able to see before his little viewpoint vanished, the room continuing to shape and meld, mountain ranges springing up that blocked his ability to see them as the doorframe itself rotates away again. But more on them later.

Flaaffy, despite the abuses it had quite clearly suffered at the hands of Ein in the facility, warms up to Amaranth quite readily - maybe, sadly, how it was chosen for these experiments due to its docility and easy-going nature trying to be bred into the DNA of the chimera to give it orders. She considers the ball for a couple moments with a little huff as Amaranth strokes her ears, thinking about the last time she had trusted a trainer with a capsule like this. Again, despite its misgivings, the little Pokemon still has a heart of gold and decides to tap the ball with its nose, allowing itself to be captured. After all, anything had to be better than here.



Using the reverse of the momentum, Ogerpon swung itself back up into the tower following its prey for the moment, only to be met with an intense Crush Claw. Luckily, still wielding its Ivy Cudgel, it managed to wedge the weapon between the tines of the oncoming piercing talons but one of the sword-sharp appendages slides past its guard, managing to break the skin and elicit a harsh gasp from the legend, hands shaking as it attempts to hold back a more fatal wound in its side. This fight was reaching the end of the littler Pokemon's patience threshold, and she was done with it. Pivoting suddenly to rotate around the attack and send Type: Null off balance, Ogerpon's flame mask on her face blazes as she conjures more and more vines, lashing together her spare masks from behind her back within the depths of what would look like a massive smashing implement, aptly named Wood Hammer.

"Grraaaaaah!" She screams, taking a swing with the full might of her power behind it, catching Type: Null in midair and sending it clattering end over end across the floor of the lab and through a couple more previously undisturbed tanks, the glass on each of them shattering as the Normal-type heads through them nearly unimpeded. Luckily for the Snagems their contents would be dead, but the warrior had put everything she had into that attack. Because it used her other three masks it tended to exhaust her to use it more than that and she slumps, wheezing behind the Hearthflame visage as she drops to a knee, red blood welling up from the Type: Null's vicious cut on her ribs. She wavers, shaking as she tries to rise, and then collapses - the four masks clattering to the ground as her vines can no longer hold them.

Group Two... and Part of One:



Darts doesn't blame the Solgaleo hybrid vanishing out of sight from the massive cavalcade of pillars, spikes, spears, and everything else rushing at all of them all at once. Leslie was buying herself a ton of time smashing things left and right, and as Crystal disappears out into Ultra Space, the Giratina hybrid decides to follow right along in his own way, ripping his way into the Distortion World with Shadow Force. It was strange, normally when he stepped through into the antimatter dimension he couldn't get any kind of a bead on what's happening back in the normal world, but for some reason he could almost sense the Psychic lion like a burning bright ball of energy coursing and moving through her own Ultra Space in her own dimension and he tries to key up with her, emerging at the same time she did and in the same space as he rips back in, unleashing the Shadow Force in time with her wormhole. They hadn't moved into the other room, luckily for Blizz who would be watching for a moment dumbfounded as the two legendary hybrid's combined force shoot out like a geyser of energy, destroying straight out four straight rows of blocks in an avalanche of splintering rocks and silicone. As they drive a massive wedge into the heart of the room, a squealing scream of agony comes from somewhere and they would see, for a brief instant before it vanished back into the relative safety of the other crowd of blocks, a bright red computational core embedded on the side of one of the moving bricks. Their combination attack had certainly nicked it, hence the distress, and the room coils and undulates, almost burying the thing under an artificially created bunker reflexively.

Group Three:



Sub, with a little divine inspiration and also an unpleasant look into Ein's sick and twisted mind, solves the lower-case cipher on the fly, downloading file after file after file into the device. Not being able to give it more than a cursory look, the group's prize for solving the maze almost looked like video files created by Ein himself, his air of smug superiority staring up at them on the digitally-created thumbnail of each video.

Luckily for this group, the center of the maze also contained an exit, and they would all see Cynthia round the corner, a Pokeball in hand as they beat a hasty retreat from the approaching champion, her face scowling bloody murder at them. Someone would need to seal the door behind them, in order to prevent her from catching up nigh-immediately. Luckily, her Garchomp was wounded from Wren's trap earlier in addition to being out of Mega juice. They probably still wouldn't take her in a full-on fight, but they had a step on her now.

The door led to a short, quaint, hallway that transitioned into a pair of doors - one on the right, and one on the left. This gave the illusion of choice, but whichever of the two they picked wouldn't matter at this moment because both halves were solved as they open one and run into...

Group Four:




Who was still in the middle of conversing with Ulla's parents, her mom specifically. She was hovering around her daughter nervously, feeling the vibes of her most beloved family member being off somehow. Taka Hanabi, her father, finally comes up from the group that were surrounding the wounded Pokemon, some of the explorers clearly taking a liking to the poor things in their condition. (If someone wants to capture one of the Pokemon, bring it up in Discord and talk about it, otherwise the scientists will take them in.) If anybody wanted to take some pictures or maybe even a little sampling of the technology contained within, this might be their only singular opportunity to do so as...

All of the discussion around the Pokemon comes to a brief halt, the other scientists making very apparent decisions on whether to run or fight as Group Three barges into the middle of them all, Cynthia hot on their heels. None of them seemed to decide either way, but there's a visible tenseness that shudders through the group, PTSD or some other kind of trauma from the terrible things they had seen run from room to room here. There was another door on the opposite side of the pair that had led them in, and unless somebody didn't warn them about the oncoming Champion that was going to be their best shot of getting out of here quickly. Ulla's mother's map at a glance corroborates this, indicating that a Blue Room was on the other side of those doors, thus perfectly safe(ish) to go through.

The group of explorers seem hesitant to even trust that these people are who they say they are, more trauma from Ein's tower, but the two groups are back together as one. Someone was going to have to take charge and get them out of here, and somebody was going to have to slow down Cynthia, even at least temporarily.

Ulla's mother, however, is desperately trying to figure out why her daughter is acting the way she is - distant, cold, not at all like the girl she knew even though she had gone to work with Snagem. "No, no video records or anything that I can ever remember seeing... And work with him?" The recoiling disgust in her voice is deep as she starts to tear up, holding it together for her child. "What are you trying to insinuate, Ulla?" She asks, her tone clearly wounded as she clutches her map tighter in distress, oblivious to the danger closing in on all of them. She just cared about her daughter.

Taka Hanbi, Ulla's father stood up from the group. Noticing that his daughter was acting weird. Cold almost to her own parents. "Ulla." He said a bit stern noticing that his wife was hovering. "What is going on? We have always supported you no matter what you did. We understand tensions are high, and we still support you now." He said waiting for an answer.

Ulla tensed up when she heard her father's voice. Her breathing became shallow as she felt she was being attacked. She was slightly glad that in this universe, they had nothing to do with Ein. "N-Nothing is going on...A-And...I'm really....really glad you do..." She said as her voice was shaking more and more. This was not happening, she was being scolded at a time like this? Then a sudden boom broke the awkwardness as she saw other Snagems. "Where did you guys come from?!" She shouted as she felt the pressure of Cynthia.

"No, no video records or anything that I can ever remember seeing....And work with him?

Oh no. Even though she wasn't connected to this mother. She felt a shift. "What are you trying to insinuate, Ulla?" The disgust in her voice made the Fairy Child's stomach knot several times over. Ulla kept looking towards where the danger was and back to her mother and father. She quickly grabbed her parent's hands. "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to insinuate anything...Everything is just....upside down. And I'm trying to make sense of it all....but please. Believe me when I say this." She looked up to the both of them. Tears were welling up. "I'm so glad. To see the both of you. To hold your hands...to feel your warmth. I'm so happy to have you as my mom and dad." Ulla said as she started to guide them away from out based on her mother's map. "Now please. We need to get out of danger now. Please mom. Please dad." She said almost in a begging tone like a child.

"I...I don't want to be away from you again..." She said so genuinely and being careful with her words. Her memories were torturing her as she was remembering how they died. Seeing their gravestones. How she herself died. Her hands that held onto her parents started to tremble. The little Fairy Child started to think....was this her second chance?

No. Don't think that. These aren't your parents. And you aren't their Ulla. Your memories are the truth. Ulla thought as she tried to collect herself. But she kept fumbling on her emotions. Though, she did know one thing. They needed to get out of here. Lucario quickly helped the other scientist and adventures up and guided them out of the way and towards the exit and out of the way of danger.

Well, dang. Running for her life wasn't exactly on her list of things to do today, but at the same time, they didn't really have much choice. Amber followed along after the men, wanting to be the last in case Cynthia came after them, which she most certainly would after what had happened. The center of the maze held a single computer, which, unfortunately, needed some kind of password. And it appeared that the password key was some kind of cipher. Ah, how she hated ciphers. She'd never been good at them, and had no time to try and figure this one out now. She would leave that to the more tech-oriented members of the team.

She heard Wren's words about a door, heard his question as to whether she could freeze the door shut. Picking up something she thought might be the hard drive from the now-destroyed console, she bolted after her teammates, just before Wren closed the door behind them. "Frost, do it," she said. "Use Ice Beam to seal the door, then follow it up with a Rock Slide against the ice and freeze the rocks with Ice Beam again." The shiny Abomasnow gave a grunt and turned to do the task he was given, freezing the door over with Ice Beam, then using Rock Slide to add an extra layer of protection before freezing the rocks. He did this three times in total, each time moving closer to the end of the hallway as he did so. Good luck getting through that any time soon.

She followed Wren and the others once again, surprised as they wound up reuniting with Ulla and her group. "Cynthia isn't going to get through that door easily," she said. "I had Frost seal it with Ice Beam and Rock Slide, though with Cynthia being as determined as she is, I'm sure she won't take long to figure out how to catch us. I just don't understand why she's doing this. She never seemed to be power hungry or unreasonable, so this is very out of character for her, at least from what I've seen of her on TV."

It had been a moment as he continued to mind the Oranguru that had been aiding the room in its creation that a thought crossed Reno's mind. A Pokeball wuld offer a much more viable environment for helping the thing heal, letting the others focus on one patient. Hopefully the collar would not somehow stymie the attempt to capture the Psychic type but it was still worth the attempt. Pulling out a Great Ball, he would tap the device against the Oranguru just as the other gorup barreled into the room from their adventures in the maze. Jumping to attention, his trio of Pokemon would also be jumping to attention to assault their invaders before they recognized exactly who they were. Thankfully, being at full alert wasnt wasted after Wren immediately mentioned what exactly it was they were running from.

Stretching his arms and letting a smile cross his face, Reno took stock of what exactly they had said. Cynthia was hellbound on hunting them down, she had a ton of debris and deterrrents that would make her have to use a lot of force and momentum to clear, and it sounded like she wasn't even close to what she typically came across as. This sounded like the prefect setup to get a little peak under the hood of their third personal oddity, see what might be waiting there if Reno didn't have to be subtle. But he would only have one real opportunity at this before it would be throwing down with a Champion level trainer while also attemtping a mental invasion. "Alright, explorer team. Due to reasons of woman who threw us into the traps that led us her is coming down those halls, we will be exiting out the other door. Miss Hanabi, use that map and find us a way back to the main room." Reno said to the stunned scientists, hoping that the direct command towards Ulla's mother would cut through the tyical bystander reaction of stand around and watch. "Most of the Snagems should follow directly with the explorer team. Keep them safe as we try to get out of here."

Turning back towards the doors that had brought the two groups together, Reno continued. "Me and anyone else who feels up to it can play rearguard. Try and hinder our pursuer enough that we can actually slip away. Speaking of, if everyone would back away from the doors please. Aleister, Trick Room!" The Reuniclus would quickly move into position, forming a box of strange psychic energy that would start at the door frames and extend out a fair distance as a makeshift speedtrap. Walking over to the edge of the Trick Room, Reno would wait with his Finizen and his Wynaut out. The second he managed to pick up her mind, he would put all his energy into attempting to invade and see exactly what Cynthia was thinking. While he hoped to have some backup for this attempt, he was fully willing to make this a solo mission while everyone else made for the exit.

------

Leslie's panicked flailing of Fairy energy and physical mass had managed to break her out of the potential for being crushed or stabbed as she simply started reducing the offending implements to dust. Although the destruction was certainly noisy, she did manage to hear a familair voice calling out for...only Crystal and Darts. "WHAT ABOUT LESLIE?!" The indignant hybrid bellowed back, taking advantage of the slight pause as the bunker for the thing's core formed to slam her hammer into the pillars and leverage it to send herself flying through the air towards where Crystal and Darts were.

As she drew close to landing, the head of her hammer would already be beginning to glow with a steely-gray energy. The mouths would begin to draw themselves closed, attempting to contain the volatile ball of Steel energy that threatened to vibrate and tear apart the hammer. Gripping tightly onto her weapon, Leslie would swing the hammer around herself and let the momentum take her into a top spin. "Steel Hammer Beam!" Leslie shouted, grabbing onto a small pull switch and yanking on as hard as she could. At the head of the hammer, the mouth aimed towards the bunker would burst itself open as the four 'petals' of the 'flower' bloomed out of the way of what was coming, which was the chamber within the hammer opening an apeture and releasing the Flash Cannon that had been contained within. The beam of energy would streak towards where she had seen the core duck away to, aiming to blast through the thing in an attempt to put an end to this misery. "And now this! Why am I calling out attacks like that and why is it all working!?" Leslie said, eyes darting between her attack, her hammer, and herself as she attempted to discern how exactly all her momentum had disappeared the second she had done the attack amongst everything else that had just occurred.