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I sighed, taking a deep breath from the brief pot shots between Sub and Cynthia. This was going to be a long mission…

Tristen and I would make our way into the tower, following Cynthia’s lead. It was a little hard to believe in the couple of years we had left this place in ruin that not much headway has been done in trying to uncover everything Ein had hidden here. Though, given what Cynthia just explained…perhaps the no wonder. Just being here was just abysmal. Like staring at this place just sucked any morale and drive out of you. I noticed Tristen shoving his hands into his jacket pockets, bringing it tight across his torso, a cold chill which dominated the afternoon Orre heat. He really started to second guess if he should have came here. He did almost perish here, after all. The stagnant dust smell that filled the halls from the excavating and demolition only exacerbated the feeling of utter hopelessness of being here. Even to this day, it was hard to believe that Ein turned a place like this into what would have otherwise been said to be a stereotypical mad scientist’s tower. Hell, he probably had the lightning storms during Orre’s worse dry spells just for added effect for as all I knew. It was sad, honestly. This place could have been at least some sort of bastion of hope for the people of Orre, at the very least. Not like they had much else to look forward to. But then leave it to someone like Ein to muck it up.

The various workers here that were tasked to figure out the proverbial puzzle that was Ein’s fortress probably felt even worse than we did. At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me that these people were drafted as opposed to volunteered to come to excavate this tower out hollow. I have to admit; I pitied them. Made my stance all the firmer in why weren’t we called out here to try to deal with whatever Ein still had lingering around as opposed to the people who aren’t conditioned to be ready for this. It left me to wonder just what in the hell were the governing bodies thinking? Just because Ein was gone didn’t exactly mean the peril wasn’t quite over. These people didn’t need to get involved in that. Too many had already been messed up as is. Just ask the multitudes of people that got pulled out that very fateful final battle.

Tristen and I would then perk up, something that sounded fairly out of place in a place like this. Cynthia would guide us to the source of the high-pitched complaining, the lead researcher in this excavation. But that name. “Lovrina…?” I said silently to myself. Apart from Keiko mentioning it, albeit in the negative, a while back, I felt I knew that name too, but I couldn’t for the life of me state how. Like it was something I should know. Did it relate to Ein? Maybe someone else’s face I meant to punch or ice beam at the time? Something I dismissed at one point? It was barely an echo of a memory at best, but it was enough to bother me. The most all I knew now for certain was that Keiko was more than not on good terms with this person and now I had the feeling I had to be the one to break up a fight if it came to it. I could only hope that Keiko doesn’t do anything stupid…

Anyone who thought Lovrina was being genuine would immediately know something was wrong as pinkish-red energy burst from her body as if a water balloon had popped. The muscles on Keiko's well-toned arms, built from years of working out, shivered in rage. A rage that was desperately being held back, as the look on the Lopunny hybrid's face could testify. Keiko did her best to gently remove Lovrina's arms from her body, not willing to hurt the human despite DESPERATELY wanting to.

"After what you did to me, the hell makes you think I'd want anything to do with you?" Keiko hissed, letting her face express her anger now that the root cause of it wasn't in her personal space.

It had taken a few trips into and out of a teleport scrambler for the initial attempt to infiltrate Realgam Tower. And while it was easy enough to get used to the sensation of the things in a constant exposure state, repeatedly getting the static turned on and off either by proxy or by his own direct action left him a little off-balance for the first moments of their infiltration as he attempted to gain full focus on things again. But that was all it took for them to be immediately derailed by someone spotting them. And not just any someone, but possibly one of the biggest guns in the Indigo Alliance with at least some potential to want to try and send them back away. While everyone else was responding in pretty close to the same way Reno would've, he was doing his best to make sure himself and his Reuniclus were in position if this particular firecracker went off. But the worries about having to throw down with a League Champion were at least tempered for the time being.

Leslie had been similarly preparing, doing her best to bite her tongue to not be the reason that this particular meeting went wrong. But as they walked into the elevator, she kept both hands on her hammer and had her eyes locked onto Cynthia.

Back at the parking spot for the jet, Kaiden the Alakazam would simply watch as the collected Snagems began to go inside the building. Giving a shrug over his current inability to provide much aid for them all, the Psychic Pokemon would take up a meditative stance in the shade of their transport alongside Aile and her Pokemon.

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It was hard for Leslie to keep still as the elevator made its way into the depths of the tower. The last time she had been in Realgam had been a blur of aggression, violence, and a last stand out in the desert that got......fuzzy, before they ended up getting into the tower to back up everyone that was still there. It kept gripping her hammer tightly, white knuckles prominent as she kept her gaze searching across each new sight and processing everything she could hear. And one thing stood out for her to ask after. "What do you mean about black areas? Would that be where we could find data stuff?" Leslie asked after, attempting to try and get some information out of this whole crazy interaction.

From the back of the pack, Reno would lock eyes and his mind onto Lovrina. Hopefully all the Ebonite wouldn't interfere too much as he attempted to see what exactly Lovrina's true thoughts were when she started answering some of the questions and statements posed to her by the others. After the weirdness with Bulder, he wanted to actually try and read the thoughts of one of these altered people.

All Monique had asked was "You know each other?" The reaction from Keiko was about the last thing she expected given how overjoyed Lovrina seemed. Keiko seemed to be doing all she could to push Lovrina off of her. Something did not add up, but she wasn't exactly privy to it, either. Ulla seemed to be moving toward her in an effort to calm Keiko down, and she also had her Comfey out. Monique saw the train in her head. It was listing on its side and ready to derail at the next curve. They could not have this right now.

"I'm...not quite sure what's going on, but it's a pleasure to meet you, Lovrina. I am Monique Kaʻanaʻana." A small, respectful bow, as Mama Sachi would have taught her.

Deo wouldn't be blinded as he looked around at the tower, but he would find himself unable to see very far either. Every wall and structure, being coated in or infused with Ebonite also seemed to have the properties of a dense grade of lead, stymying his best attempts to see through anything. Even something as close as the next area just outside of the room they were in was impossible to make out, just dense dark blackness that outlined the room they were in. Outside of people's skeletons there was nothing remarkable about the staging area.




Doctor Lovrina seemed incredibly put off by Keiko's reactions, taking half a step back with a hurt sort of look on her face. "What do you mean, Keiks? You're not acting like yourself..." Her frown deepens. "I thought you came to see me and brought your friends to come see where I work..."



"We met near Goldenrod City, she was making a delivery to the daycare there and hit it off right away... she was very interested in my Pokemon empathy research and have been friends ever since. We had lunch later that day and since then we've always stayed in touch, although she hasn't messaged me in a couple weeks..." Lovrina's frown deepens at this line of questioning, now hurt that Keiko had never bothered to mention her to her teammates. "After seeing what I've seen here, Ein is an absolute maniac. I've experienced evil I didn't even dare suspect would be able to exist." She moves on from the topic quickly, almost ruminating on Keiko's response. "I know being in Snagem is a big responsibility so I wasn't too worried... Oh!" She gasps, cutting herself off as she catches sight of Ulla.



"Mama?" She asks, half-rhetorically as she glances between Keiko and Ulla for a moment, before breaking into a smile again, leaning towards the little Fairy with a big grin. "You must be Ulla, huh? Your parents have told me so much about you little girl... It's too bad you just missed our most recent expedition team, they just went further on into the tower ahead of y'all but maybe if you get lucky you'll bump into them out there. They've told me soooo much about you, Taka in particular is proud of his girl." The scientist nudges Keiko with an elbow, smirking over her shoulder. "Nice of you to fill in when she misses her mom, I always knew you were a little sweetheart at your core Keiks dear..."



"That is... correct! ...If it's out there." Lovrina answers with a little chirp in her voice, turning her back on the rest of the group and Ulla, seemingly unaware of the little bombshell she had just dropped on the Fairy. Skipping back over to the easel where she had been holding court a few minutes earlier, the pigtailed scientist taps the map, indicating where they were near the base of the tower. "You'll see here, the room we're in is considered a 'Blue Zone' - that means it's been thoroughly explored and we're relatively sure we've disarmed all the traps, encountered all of the nasties, what have you." She moves upwards, following the path out of the room and up the elevator shaft into the tower proper. "We have cleared the first room or two, but this place is soooo nasty icky full of stuff," As she goes she presses on each of the blue rooms on the map. "That right after the first room or two we get into what we call the 'Gray Zones' - we've been into them and either whatever is in there is inert, already tripped, but we're not positive that they're completely safe either and they need work done to clear out and catalogue. The other colors we use are 'Red Zones',"

She indicates the three to four of those on the map with another set of taps. "Or 'Black Zones'. Red Zones are rooms we've confirmed are actively hostile - either there's something in there we need to deal with, something that looks like a trap, and/or they've actively caused a fatality recently and we need to make sure that they're inert before we can change them to a Gray Zone and resume work clearing them out. Black Zones are rooms where we either haven't been inside them, or very, very briefly on our way to another known quantity. These are still... numerous." The map at a wide view was a patchwork of mostly blue and gray extending out from the main room, elevator and first handful of rooms. But outside of this perimeter the majority of the rooms were a dark black. "We have to be incredibly careful as each room seems to bring its own... challenges." The woman winces, as if remembering a particularly painful event.



"Oh well aren't you polite, sweetie?" Lovrina gives Monique a little wink and a bow in return, her pigtails swinging as she dips awkwardly, not used to the custom. "I appreciate meeting new people from another region... we have a few scientists from Alola here."

From what Reno could discern, despite all of the Ebonite screaming in his mental eardrum surrounding them, everything Lovrina was saying was true, at least in her mind. When she was talking about Keiko, memories of them laughing and sharing good times together would swirl through his mind, as well as Ulla's parents smiling and talking about their daughter over a cup of coffee in the camp. When she switched topics to the horrors of the tower he would get a deep sense of dread, pain, and blood. Screams from scientists and explorers she had known butchered in front of her clearly weighed heavily on her psyche, pushed down deep inside because she had to press on. If she left this place it would all be in vain. All of the deaths, all of the families torn apart. They had to clean this thing out even if it took her the rest of her life.

And she didn't remember Sub at all, passing over his face without so much of a twitch of recognition externally or, as Reno would confirm, internally.



Cynthia turns to look at Wren, shaking her head a little as if buzzing away an annoying bug. "No, Sinnoh hasn't exactly endorsed you lot but they have been, as traditionally, interested in their own designs. We're a traditional people, we'll do what's best for ourselves for better or worse of everyone else." Her heels clack on the floor again as she makes her way over to the elevator that would travel out and up into Realgam proper, tapping a button to hail it down from the tube. "Regardless, while all of this reunion is very interesting," Her tone belied that she did not think so. "But you came here for a very specific reason and while I have to accompany you lot in... I don't want to be here all month. So let's get going, yeah?" The Champion steps onto the elevator, fearlessly crossing her arms as she waited for the rest of the team to follow.

Tristen and I would listen to the bunch, trying to parse through everything that was being said between Lovrina and the Snagems. From Keiko’s animosity to Lovrina explaining their color-coded system as to what was a safe room and what wasn’t. Though as the conversation went on, Tristen and I couldn’t help but to stare in a bit of confusion. Haven’t heard from Keiko in a couple of weeks? Kept constantly in touch before then? The way Keiko talked, she wanted her perhaps as much as dead as anyone wanted Ein six feet under. This wasn’t making any sense. Then again, that’s been a common trend as of late. From SWIPE’s antagonizing, never mind their version of events that had transpired with the Snagems, to Devon Corp.’s Bulder back from the dead somehow, now this. Is someone playing some cruel prank here? Reality being rewritten in subtle ways? We know things to be different in one fashion or another, so what was it that we were missing here? I was left to wonder a little bit a few things, something I might need to make a point to ask questions about later if I could.

Tristen would notice me rubbing my eyes, a bit frustratingly as I was trying to make heads and tails of the whole situation. There was something that we were missing, but I still had no idea as to what and trying to find out what exactly it is wasn’t going to come easily being hunted as we were. The fact that we were being allowed to go in to check out Ein’s former lair was a miracle in and of itself.

I would follow the bunch into the elevator, with Tristen close by me. Tristen himself was a little distracted for the most part, trying to figure out the whole overarching mystery that dragged him out of the school, though some of his thoughts were mired by just being in a place that was nearly his grave. He was trying to figure out at least a question to ask, maybe to get some sort of insight as to how the way things were. Then something that had gave Tristen a bit of realization. “Ms. Cynthia?” Tristen spoke up during the ride up. “I’m guessing that you are part of SWIPE too since you were talking about making arrests and stuff. Is all of SWIPE part of Sinnoh’s efforts to do their own thing like you were talking about? And why no one really heard of them until recently with all of this stuff happening?” he asked. It was a fair question, I at least thought. Truthfully, it felt like in a way how Hoenn had HAZARD early on. Though HAZARD was hastily put together in retrospect, never mind manipulated by the likes of Lysandre.

Crystal tilted her head slightly as she listened to Lovrina, nodding as she gave her response to the galactic catwoman. “Well, that’s better this time. The other one I’ve encountered I would swear probably had a shrine to him.” Crystal kept watching the doctor as her attention went elsewhere, frowning as she could feel an old instinct bubbling up. These discrepancies were making her want to record them, something she would do when she arrived in a new reality. Enough of them looked to be adding up within the team that just gave that sort of feeling. After a second, she would start digging through her bag, bringing out her journal and a pen.

She would quickly flip it open to a blank page, date it, and start writing. The hybrid wasn’t keeping the contents secret, and if anyone looked over her shoulder, they would see her writing down everyone’s reactions to this dissonant information. As soon as it was written down, though, she would snap the book shut and return it to her bag, finger coming to her lips. Had somehow some realities merged? But then how were the Snagems’ memories not affected by that? Not everyone was a faller, unless just prolonged exposure to anyone that had gone through Ultra Space could protect them from that. She didn’t think that was the case, but how things had shifted gave her that feeling. Light, she wished she kept more detailed notes on things like this even before she became a being of Ultra Space, but she had no reason to even bother with it before then. How was she supposed to have known that something like that would have happened to her?

Biting down on her thumbnail, she would seemingly stare off into space for a moment, trying to puzzle things out. There was no way the woman wasn’t going to doubt the Snagem’s memories. But, someone was either pulling off the greatest gaslighting of all times, or something happened and realities merged. It was extremely rare, but not quite unheard of. Branches on this figurative tree of realities could wind up intertwining again before yet another pivotal moment split it into two paths once more. Could something like that be what happened to the Snagems? Crystal would slowly follow the others onto this new elevator as she put a pin in that train of thought. They’d get their answers soon enough. As long as they were able to emerge from this circle of Hell.