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"It was Luke," Schraeder quietly corrected, looking at the pokeball he had just received as he rolled it around in his hand. "Dr. Terrian called him Luke."

He looked up, made brief eye contact with Juno then Ulysses, and shrugged. "I like to listen. Dr. Terrian was talking about something called... the Dreamweavers? Yeah, I think that was it." He cleared his throat. "He was talking about how Beatrice Oak seemed to... delay gathering us, in order to maybe protect us. He said that the Dreamweavers would have tried to find and kill us, but... well, he and Luke would protect us. Despite Dr. Oak's misgivings, apparently."

Lexi let off a cheer as Phoenix managed to actually cause the bulbasaur to lose its balance. Sure, no contact was made, but considering the fact that the bird had basically flown straight at the grass type with no attempt at hiding what was coming, and thinking the trainer could probably mop the floor with the whole crowd, humans and pokémon alike, it was a heck of a start for her first ever pokémon battle. She could only hope it wasn’t her last… even eight on one, she was worried they would have to get lucky.

From there, the fight was on, however. Lexi soon found herself hitting the deck as a wild spray of seeds careened out of the spore-screen. The blind kid had gotten unlucky though. She couldn’t see where he’d gotten hit, only that he was staggering before he vanished. What the? As with all strangeness that occurred while Terrian was around, the scientist earned her first glance around for an explanation, which she actually got this time, sort of. Not having seen the point of contact, she bought the ‘ish’…and, well, really there was nothing she could do about it right then. As much as she had disliked this crazy mess, she did not want to disappear in a flash of purple light before she got a non-incredibly-vague explanation of what was going on, and that meant winning the fight against the psychic’s bulbasaur. As it was, though, she wasn’t really sure what she could do to help anything… Phoenix was already doing what spearows do best: fly fast and annoy the heck out of their opponent if said opponent is too big to eat. It was probably a good thing the bird pokémon was somewhat resistant to grass-type attacks though… ‘annoyance’ was definitely coming back doubled on Amber’s vines.

The first inferno hit as Lexi was trying to sort through the half-heard (at least until the man started nearly yelling) conversation between Terrian and Juno and her spearow was turning around for another pass. It was back to the ground again like an old-school multi-disaster drill (though this time the disasters weren’t imaginary) and the number of fighters dropped by one again… This time the kid didn’t poof out of the arena however, though that was almost worse. After making sure her bird wasn’t on fire, she went to see if she could help Juno, but to no avail… she was no doctor either.

Then the psyduck quacked, the kids got lucky, and the whole game changed again as a familiar face that had no business being in Glenville walked into the room…and apparently wanted them. It was odd, all this talk about rules when it seemed to Lexi like rules had been flying out the window since Woodmount had been attacked. Jeb obviously hadn’t been paying attention earlier though, or he would have known that antagonizing Terrian was an absolutely horrible idea. In some ways, Lexi saw it coming, in others…ugh, just, ugh.

The girl began backing away from Terrian, the mess, the others, shaking her head slowly. It wasn’t about being afraid of Terrian… she’d been afraid of him since the first time they’d met. It was more fear of the idea that he wanted them to do the same. Not them precisely, but their teams were supposed to pretty much wreak utter destruction at the drop of a hat? Her first thought was someone hadn’t been paying attention for the last few years if they thought she would be good at this. Underneath the tan, her face was white as she watched the aftermath blankly. The stumble right before Phoenix landed on her shoulder didn’t even register as strange, and she trailed the group as they wandered back through the tunnels, having not even bothered to take one of the balls from Ulysses. She didn’t want to choose lightly, and that was not her best moment for thinking.

Probably the first thought to make it through the apprehension that had taken her over was a mental facepalm as Stetson asked if all was well. And someone else who wasn’t paying attention… or has a really odd opinion of things going well… She nodded vaguely as Ulysses corrected him, the older man pretty much adding details to what she had been guessing. As far as she was concerned, it wasn’t nightmare fuel, it was ways to avoid worse nightmare fuel. She was pleased when the conversation turned to how Terrian had gone… odd… while talking, and quietly added her piece to the puzzle the other kids were trying to put together. “Was it Luke who he was talking about when he yelled? He seemed frustrated that someone was in pain…I think it was Luke.”

On top of all of it, she failed to register that Hertzstein had been killed. The death of her town’s leader hardly seemed important next to everything else.

Once Ulysses had finished explaining his adventure down into the strange catacombs and his encounter with Nebule, the professors exchanged glances and took the proffered USB drive from him. "That certainly... sounds like Mother. Programming a hologram of her pokémon," Rufus mumbled as he plugged in the device to one of the many computers humming around him, then waved in the veterans as they arrived. Paul was able to confirm that Alyssa and Juno were, in fact, alive and healthy, though probably mildly stunned, still. Skye quietly pointed all the guests towards the office refrigerator, which was stocked with canned tea, coffee, soda, and bottled water, and whispered, "Sit down and relax; please."

Rufus continued. "Although... it sounds like a highly advanced AI, and while she was brilliant in a lot of fields, she used to always turn to us for software engineering... I wonder... Terrian was no good at software, either, but there was this friend of his, Lucas... Lucas William, I think, who was a little crazy. Heh, we used to call him Bill for kicks, just 'cuz it pricked at him, but he was a good guy. It's too bad we haven't seen him." It was unlike Rufus to carry on like this. Skye looked at him in mild concern until the older brother shook his head gruffly and said, "Excuse me. Luke was a good friend of mine, and hearing about Nebule has gotten me a little nostalgic, I guess. Every pokémon Mother raised was stellar, simply because she understood them so well, and Nebule was a god among them. Hopefully once we do a little decoding, he'll point us in the next direction."

With Rufus in his rare state of calm and refreshments available, the insane pace of the past days finally seemed to draw to a pause. Information of the past few hours was exchanged. Jacob received intermittent reports of the cleanup in the hydroponics caverns as bodies were recovered and identified. Olivia arrived to check in on everyone and thank the veterans for their aid in subduing the Dreamweaver. Jacob seemed a little fidgety, but his apparent history with Bishop Schwartz easily explained that. Charlesworth and Rufus eventually lost themselves in exploring the Flash drive Ulysses had delivered. At one point, Skye bowed his head. "I'm very sorry to hear about the loss of Aaron. Every young person that Mother chose for this is important, and I'm afraid it's just going to be harder for those of you remaining to complete this objective. Speaking of which, have any of you begun to feel strange, or seen your pokémon exhibiting skills with elements they, ah, really shouldn't be able to use?"

As cold as Lexi had been feeling, when she saw the tea amongst the refreshments, she decided figuring out how to get the metal-canned liquid heated up by the microwave would be a good way to distract her mind from the destruction she’d just watched and the idea that she would have to learn to do the same or die for a little while. She needed five minutes where the biggest problem in her life was how to make hot tea, and this time it seemed she’d be permitted to have it. A probably long-forgotten Styrofoam cup was found in a cupboard, and soon she was curled around the steaming liquid listening to the reports coming in from the caves.

Tea-induced distraction only lasted so long with the puzzle of how to get it warm solved. More distraction came from trying to decide which of the pokémon Ulysses offered she was going to choose. There was the ekans, pinsir, and sandshrew left… In the end, wanting to avoid ending up stuck in any more holes, and figuring that bugs and snakes were not good things to keep around a bird Pokémon, she made her decision and walked up to the old doctor. “Could I have the sandshrew?” Names would come later, when she knew more about the ground type she had acquired.

After that, she wandered over to where the Oak brothers had focused in on their computer, quietly watching, trying to see if there was anything that could make sense to her. It was about the only thing left that served as a distraction in a moment when she wasn’t so interested in being social. Then Skye seemed to have realized something. After expressing regrets for Aaron being gone and the additional work that meant, he asked if they had noticed anything odd in themselves or their pokémon. Lexi didn’t say anything, even after Juno spoke up, though the fact she was feeling off was written on her face for anyone who looked to see. She just didn’t think it was worth mentioning because she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with etheric oddness, and Phoenix hadn’t done anything odd either so…

Skye nodded as the two girls answered, the disappointment plain on his face. "Hmf. I think we were both hoping that would have taken more effect by now, but oh well. It can wait." He tensed for a second, looking around. "Sorry," he explained sheepishly when he noticed a few of those gathered looking at him oddly. "I guess I'm afraid that any time we make a decision on something, Terrian's going to pop in and confuse everything again." Rufus snorted.

It took some time for the aforementioned Rufus to notice Lexi was standing over his shoulder while he typed and hemmed and hawed and grunted - he could have articulated full sentences without saying a single word - but after Charlesworth had bonked him on the head with a wing, he gave a start. "Oh, hi there, Lexi. Forgot you're into tech." He shifted his posture slightly in an obvious invitation for her to get a clearer look at his monitors. Linux code ran like a waterfall as he navigated various file paths, searching for useful information. A lot of them seemed to be expected - "Pokénomics," full of data on the company and the various leaders; "Type Chart Updates," with various papers that had been published and integrated into more detailed graphs of ether elements and the like; "Meetings," which Rufus very conspicuously ignored; "Legends," which was a topic in which Beatrice had never feigned disinterest - but many seemed vague, unrelated, or even eerie. "Missingno - DO NOT OPEN." "Unown Transcripts." "Favorite Foods." "Vacation in Pompeii." "Wedding Photos." "Nether." "Dreams and Fossils." "Dr. Alexander Terrian." "Children."

Eventually, Rufus gave one of his snorts and muttered, "Looks like she put literally everything on here. And I'm sure you've picked up on it, but all these data files..." He pointed at a second monitor that seemed infested with progress bars while gibberish flew up various windows. "...are etheric software. Running the programs unleashes 'flavored' ether - it's the same way Pokécenters pull off their rapid healing without letting the pokémon out of their pokéballs. And while there are all these other files, the etheric software takes up... looks like ninety percent of the drive, and I'm not exactly sure when or how she got her hands on this, but it's hundreds of gigabytes, and it's nearly all compressed; I'm unzipping it all now. Could take a while, even with these computers. Charlesworth, have you picked up anyth- Charlesworth...?"

The bird, always solemn in appearance despite his sometimes playful nature, had gone completely still. Native American folklore said that xatus would sit still for days at a time, able to contemplate both the past and future, and unwilling or unable to move out of terror for what was to come - as though every member of the species saw some great, terrible darkness. Pokébiologists had then interviewed some of the ones that had been raised around humans and therefore were able to speak semi-competently on the subject and confirmed that it was more for energy conservation or to hide from predators and prey, but there had always remained rumors of small flocks of xatus rooted in place immediately before natural disasters - hundreds of reports had come in before the Cataclysm.

"What's wrong?" Skye asked quietly.

It's Nebule, the bird answered, projecting his thin, alto voice to all those present. All of him. Not an AI. I can feel him. His tone was stiff, but it was impossible to tell whether he was afraid or just excited. Nebule has been alive inside this memory stick. I think he even has his weapons with him; it's hard to tell. Oh, Nebule... His voice quavered on the last sentence while the keyboard and monitor he was using continued to move at his will, exploring and downloading data. Then, it snapped back to formality and enigma. This will take two hours to complete. Watching will be entirely uninformative.

Rufus still seemed unclear as to whether he should be worried or excited, but a smile lit up Skye's face. "Everyone relax; he can get like that. Looks like good news. Mother has left her most powerful pokémon here to guide us."

"Well, if we have some time, I'd like to take these guys with me to plan our next move against these Dreamweaver idiots," Jacob said with a somewhat tight smile, though his tone was still light. "Come on," he invited the veterans, "I've gotten a few hints from searching those terrorists' bodies. Might be able to piece something together." He gestured to let the others lead the way and walked with them, if they were coming, though he kept one hand on his radio, tapping it distractedly.

The younger Oak nodded. "Feel free to drop back bye in two hours to see the result! The rest of you are all welcome to stay here, but if you had errands to run or calls to make out in the city, now's the time. And if the young'ns wouldn't mind, I'd love it if you could be back in an hour and a half, instead, so I can run some tests on those pokémon we gave you."