Welcome to Gaia! ::

(Ack! Superlong absence is baaaaddd @___@; I will do my best to turn this into a post today or tommorow though, Promise! >.<)

((Okay so I talked to Siber and he doesn't want to post as the Oaks for this night. So really, we're left to fend for ourselves for the rest of the night and just meet up with them in the morning. And by meeting up with them in the morning, maybe that will get Siber off his lazy butt to post. mrgreen I love our GM regardless of his laziness! Or the fact that he has a life!))

Juno was ready to follow after Lexi's lead but something stopped her. She felt something was staring at her and looked at Gerard's door. She saw a xatu and a haunter watching the kids with sad looks. "Uh hold on a bit." She walked over to them and stared at them carefully. "You guys okay?" Juno felt that something was a little off. Like the pokemon really didn't want for the children to go to the Oaks. "Look, I'm a wee bit cranky so maybe if you can just say it plainly, we'd be all better off. Should we go see the Oaks tonight?"

Both pokemon shook their heads. "But why? I mean, yeah you had to deal with Naya, but she's gone now..." They shook their heads harder. She let out a heavy sigh. "Okay. Well I'll trust you. You seem better than any adult I've ever met." She could almost feel the relief coming off them as they sighed. "See you're going to have to explain yourselves better than that...but not tonight. It's late. I'll see you tomorrow I guess." The haunter let out a cry and attempted to lick her but she backed away fast enough to avoid it. "Yeah yeah, no thanks needed."

She jogged back up to the other kids and tried explaining that they shouldn't go. She was pretty frustrated and it showed in her frown. "Look. The Oaks are not gonna answer tonight. I got the impression from their pokemon that there's more to it than just Naya's anger...we'll just see them tomorrow. At least, I will. I'm pretty tired as is..." She cracked her neck to the sides. "I think I'm gonna head home. If you guys need a place to stay, you're welcome to my place. Otherwise...I'll see you tomorrow. I promise to tell you my side of the story too," she ended with a wink.

With that said, she walked away from the group. "Hey Evie, time to go. You can hang with your new friends tomorrow." Evie barked happily. Before she left, she pounced on Flora and nuzzled the vulpix's head. Then she immediately jumped off and trotted off to follow Juno. Evie got to tease Flora back and was happy to go wherever Juno wanted to go.

Eventually, everyone managed to find their way to one resting place or another. Back at their labs, the Oak brothers heaved a sigh of relief that they would not have to do any explaining that night; it would take them the rest of the hours of moonlight to decipher the depth of their mother's encoded information. Their pokémon returned after seeing the guests off to their respective houses of repose, except for Willam, who, shortly after eyes had been taken off him, had vanished.

"Okay," Edward said, sipping coffee, "before we start this, a few things. Jacob, Jacob, Talia, Terrian, and Elian."

"Yeah," Sigmund confirmed, sipping tea. "What do you want to do?"

"Murder Terrian."

"Besides that." Neither was kidding. They just didn't want to talk about it.

"Call Thatcher. If he doesn't pick up, send Richard."

"To...?"

Edward closed his eyes and grimaced. "Capture or kill."

"Ed..."

"We can't have someone who knows that much go AWOL on us at a time like this. Either he's dead, or the Exterminant has him. Those are the only two reasons for him to have not come back with Alexis and Gerard."

"We should ask the girl..."

"The Exterminant one? She can't be trusted, no matter what the others think."

"Charles?" He turned to the xatu, who considered it, and shook his head slowly. Sigmund sighed. "Okay, fine. But shouldn't Alexis know?"

"I guess... okay, fine. We'll ask her."

"You know we shouldn't do anything until tomorrow, anyway. And it looks like Elian, Talia, and Jacob - the young-un - are stable, so don't worry about them. Let's just crack these codes so we can find the Trio, alright?"

"Yeah, yeah." Edward turned back to his station, staring at the lines of code and strange graphics their mother had created. "I just... I don't get it. Why the beasts, and not the birds?"

"I don't really know, but the beasts can teleport; you know that."

"No, legend says they can teleport. No one's ever documented. It's all speculation. At least we know the birds are real - there's one here, for Chrissake."

Sigmund shrugged uncomfortably as he turned to his own terminal. "Just trust Mom. I'm sure she knew what she was doing; she's been right about everything else, so far."

"True." Silence reigned save for the whirring of machines and the typing of three pairs of hands and one psychic prodigy. Connected as though to life support, the three pokédexes and three portable drives the professors had collected dumped their unlocked data into the lab's computers. The sounds continued until morning.

---

The growlithe dropped as quickly as its owner's jaw. The dodge and counterattack worked phenomenally well, and the weakened creature was down for the count. It didn't get back up. The man recalled it to its pokéball and cleared his throat. "Dang... alright then, you look like you know what you're about. Hey, head that way-" he pointed towards a decently small building- "if you want to join up. s**t's goin' down, and we could sure use someone with your skill. I'm out; gotta get back to my menial NPC duties." He ran off and began doing just that, leaving Vivian and Maddy to make their minds up about what to do next - join with Cliffshire, toss the body, stock up and run to Glenville - the possibilities were endless.

---

The children did not sleep soundly that night. ((Check your inboxes, young-uns.))

---

After a substantial breakfast, the crowd eventually found itself gathered again at the Oaks' labs, save for Willam. No one not directly associated with him really noticed, of course. The two brothers, once again in somewhat rumpled clothing, came out of the doors and after wincing slightly at Nayana's threatening expression, addressed them.

Edward spoke first. "You all have been tremendously successful. We spent the night decoding everything you brought us, and while we're still not finished, we know what needs to happen next. It will take about a week, but effectively, we now have the locations of the three legendary beasts - Suicune, Raikou, and Entei. Out late mother determined that obtaining the aid of those three will be instrumental in finding and subduing the mew, so it doesn't wipe out all life as it enters its next phase of sleep. You children, in addition to Talia Horsley and Jacob Vahzhiloks, are currently primed not only to attract their attention and find them due to your exposure to and possession of our mother's specially engineered pokémon, but for the same reason, also to approach the mew, assuming you are successful, and safely awaken it. Now, because Jacob and Talia were not as... conscious, I suppose, their data were not fully unlocked. Our mother had installed a very strange and complex etheric software system on the pokédexes we gave you to ensure that you children were all properly acquainted with your pokémon and thus prepared for the journey ahead.

"Anyway, what this means is that Suicune is going to be particularly difficult to find, but we at least know that it currently resides somewhere in Scandinavia. Entei, we know is in sub-Saharan Africa. Raikou was actually apparently captured in Japan, which is hilariously ironic, although I just can't bring myself to believe that's the real reason they're so big on high-tech gadgets." Grimstrip cackled obnoxiously. "But of course Japan is currently an irradiate wasteland. What that means is, whoever goes there is guaranteed to attract the creature's attention fairly quickly, because they will be the only other living things there. In my opinion, they are all equally dangerous missions, but Japan will be the most hazardous area - for that reason, Sigmund has agreed to allow Charlesworth to accompany that party."

His brother cleared his throat, and Ed stopped himself. "Oh, sorry; getting ahead of myself. Don't worry about the Exterminant being in any of those places; we are the only people with this information who are also alive, and the only people with the means of getting there. I'll let Sigmund tell you the rest."

Sigmund stepped forward. "We will have a few pokéballs for you, for capturing the three. They're master balls. They will work, period, assuming they hit their targets, which I cannot guarantee will be easy. We're engineering some right now, and we'll have all three done by the end of the week. They're... not easy to produce. With luck, the mere fact that you determined a means of capturing the legends will endear them to you; that's how pokéballs work on most normal pokémon. I suppose we'll see... anyway, you have a week to rest while we figure this all out. Sounds like a long time, but it should give you time to visit your families, train, maybe capture some more pokémon, and prepare yourselves for what's coming. Our dear mother also sent us an algorithm to feel out some of the mew's pulses - still don't know why she didn't give us this earlier, but I suppose we'll learn one day - and estimate its next 'attack,' such as it is. It's coming in three weeks." He paused to let that sink in. "Basically, what I'm saying to you is, if we don't capture those legends and convince them to reveal the mew's location, and wake up the mew, in the space of two weeks, humanity will perish."

Nayana shot her hand up. "Why the HELL ain't the rest of the world helping us out? We some podunk town in the middle of God-knows-where Idaho and we got to go save the God-blessed world? Why ain't you send, I don't know, Germany to save the world? God knows they got the firepower!"

"Nayana, I know it's hard to believe, but it's little podunk places like us that still survive. Most of Europe is as radiation-blasted as New York and Southern California. And now with the Exterminant apparently out to beat us to the punch, I'm afraid to make calls out to anywhere because it could just give them more information. I'm sorry - we really are the only ones who can make this happen, unless Mom - Dr. Oak, I mean - told someone else, and I doubt she did.

"In conclusion, rest and recuperate, and get ready to save the world. We'll try our best to answer your questions."

They were both incredibly fatigued, it seemed, but stuck around.

Only posting so I can take post #666. That is all.

((Stolen by iD bracerS for great justice.))

Stolen again by the TRUE master of JUSTICE!.

Ninja'd so smooth, no one will ever even notice.

[[I guess that's what you call a tie...Joe's writing, Siber's post?
I know the first part is jerky, but I needed to both cover time and keep classified information classified...]]

Secretly Lexi was happy about not going back to the Oaks’ labs that night. She knew she wanted her mind working its best when the Oaks’ did decide to spill the beans, which meant now was not the best time, and with everyone tired, sore and possibly grumpy…that was a meeting she wasn’t sure she wanted to see.

Lexi had to say ‘no thanks’ to Juno…she wasn’t sure how Nayana would put up with Alex, and she didn’t want to leave her new friend alone somewhere strange.

Eventually everyone said goodnight and went off to bed. Tired as she was, Lexi didn’t want to go straight to sleep: she was afraid she’d forget something important, and she wanted to take another look at the envelope of unown she had picked up from the bunker…

---------------

Between the envelope, or rather, the letter inside the envelope, and an odd set of dreams, Lexi really didn’t get much sleep. She lay there for a time after she woke up the last time, etching the dreams into awake memory, and puzzling over where it all came from. It was rare that her dad got that absolutely pissed…it seemed so real, but if it was, why didn’t she remember?

---------------

First thing she did when she woke up was get her hands on some of that coffee: she needed it. The second thing she did was tell Alex and Gerard about the letter and the dream. The third thing was figure out what the hell she was going to do about the mess she was knee-deep in… Now she really wanted to know what the Oaks were going to say today, and constantly had to remind herself to slow down on the walk over, until Phoenix pecked her rather hard and she realized that most likely none of the conversations she was envisioning having with the Professors was going to be the one she actually had, and that was probably a good thing.

Unfortunately for Lexi, the Oaks briefing created more questions than it answered. Sure, now she knew what the next part of the plan was, and at least some of the plan beyond that, but there were holes all over it. Luckily, Juno saved her from having to take aim at the most gaping one. She nodded, scratching Phoenix’s back absent-mindedly. “Yeah…why us…why us specifically?... There was a recording of your mom on Gerard’s pokedex…she mentioned both him and I by name, but I was five when she died…how does that work?” Her expression was strained: she could see the professors were exhausted…for all her bad dreams, she probably got more sleep…but this might be her only chance to get some of these answers…She hoped maybe her questions would come off as more curiosity than attack…

“Also, what did you mean by ‘primed through exposure’ to the pokemon we were given? How does spending a day…or a few days as it may be by the time this plan gets going…with these pokemon make us any more likely to safely awaken the mew? ” The professor’s statement had reminded her of feathers in strange visions. It felt odd to her, to be putting so much stake in a dream, but she had a hard time reconciling the connections between the letter and the nightmares in any way besides thinking the dream may have some hint of reality to it.

And then there was Mewtwo.

And Gabrielle. And the unown. But that was just scientific curiosity…maybe if she was lucky, the Oaks might have time for that at the end…There was another real point however, though it wasn’t really a question… Her arms were crossed, and she looked like she would rather disappear than say what she was thinking, because the last thing she wanted was the professors angry at her, or thinking she was going to switch sides, but that was the only way she could see this ending. “There’s one thing I want to put out there though, because it annoyed the hell out of me, and I would appreciate it it if it didn’t happen again. Before right now, everything I knew about our mission I had heard first from the one and only Reverend Beati, not the people I thought were on my own side… I don’t like the Exterminant, and I don’t trust them,” Her expressions backed that up “but they were right on every point so far, which hurts because they said some other things that I don’t want to become reality.”

Lexi was glad the Oaks didn’t decide to decapitate her on the spot. “ ‘most receptive to etheric inductions’ huh.” Lexi rubbed her head, remembering what being ‘receptive to etheric inductions’ meant when the Calamity struck. She hoped the Oaks were right, or she was going to be dead meat relatively quickly. Something still felt fishy about the explanation, but the only place she could see it falling apart was in the technical details, which, once again, were not the kind of thing everyone wanted to listen to.

Then the professors turned to her. Wow, had that really only been yesterday…it felt like months… “He said I shouldn’t come here, that I’d become part of a plan put together by your mom and Dr. Alex Terrian to awaken the mew by the means of some sort of ether beacon, and that rather than solving our problems, it would destroy the human race. He also threw in a few attacks on the character of both of them…What happened between Terrian and Beati anyways? But yeah…” Flash…a connection…and Lexi frowned “…Said Terrian went crazy when he became an outcast and now is only interested in fueling chaos, and said your mom, ” She curled up in a ball on her chair as she jumped back in the same ugly hole she had just gotten out of. “Killed several people in the name of science…kids my age, he said.” Her eyes were growing damp and she swallowed, trying to rid herself of the rock in her stomach. “I don’t know how much of that is true, I just know how much I don’t like most of it…” She shifted. More than getting killed on the way to whatever goal she was running towards, it scared her to think that maybe she was running towards the wrong one.

Chapter Three

"Objectivism: the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." -Ayn Rand

---

The Oaks blinked rapidly, almost in comical tandem as Lexi's - not accusations - but her concerns rolled on and on. Concern was evident on their faces, and Sigmund kept attempting to exchange looks with Edward, but couldn't seem to get his attention. Finally, the younger brother stepped forward, cleared his throat, and attempted to say, "Well, really, you have to know that's not tr-"

"Which part, exactly, is not true, Sigmund?"

The voice, inquisitive and calm, boomed through the minds of all present in the laboratory. Sigmund spluttered, whipping his head around for a source of the voice. "Who are you? We're not making some beacon! We didn't-!"

Edward, wide-eyed, mouthed something. Only Lexi made out the word he whispered: "Lucas?"

"Strictly speaking, yes, that is one part that isn't entirely true. Well-done." At that moment, a humanoid form faded into view, facing the professors as they addressed their small audience. Its body seemed to be made of violet and ivory, and a tube like an extra spinal cord extruded from the back of its skull and connected again to its back. Its head was vaguely feline, and the paws it walked on were digitigrade. A long, smooth, graceful tail extended from the base of its spine, and its three-fingered hands hung down by its sides in near-boredom.

Cringing and awe-struck, Sigmund licked his suddenly-dry lips and whispered, "What are... how did you... layers of detection, only... only Dr. Terrian..."

Edward simply cleared his throat and, his face ashen, asked more clearly, "Lucas? I- Mom told me you were dead."

"Good. I knew I could trust her with that." The voice was genuinely grateful.

"What are you doing here?"

"Protecting your brother from a downward spiral of lies that will make cooperation from these people very, very difficult."

"You were listening."

"Yes." The creature finally turned, allowing the rest of the crowd to see its face and the huge, deep purple eyes set in it. It swept its gaze across them, focusing on each of the children in turn before addressing them as a whole. "Dr. Beatrice Oak is one of the greatest minds I have ever known. Anything that she says or does, you can trust to be for the benefit of humanity as a whole. That is a certainty you would all do well not to forget. For the entirety of the time I have known her, her goodwill and character have been impeccable and infallible."

Sigmund and Edward both tried to interrupt, but found their feet bound invisibly to the floor and their mouths muted. "Some years ago, when she learned of the impending Calamity and the disasters that would follow, she devised a plan to prevent it. This plan did not have the blessing of time. She did some vague preliminary studies on rats and rattata, then went on to human beings. A simple computer program developed by the Drs. Howard was able to detect etheric susceptibilities in human beings, and Beatrice turned this to good use in finding potential candidates. She found you children, among a group of forty, and planned to intensify the receptivity; really, you can think of it as an ability to empathize with ether and etheric beings.

"Simply put, you survived this process, and they did not." Sigmund's face lost all color, and Edward's tense shoulders slouched as he hung his head and ran his fingers anxiously through his hair, mouthing, "They shouldn't know, they shouldn't know..."

"It's a terrible thing to hear that children your own age were killed. Beatrice was crushed with each loss, and in the final months she had, poured herself into her work, frenzied to make sure she had done everything she could before her incarceration. I know all this because I can filter the sane from the insane when communicating with my coworker, Dr. Alex Terrian - something he has not quite mastered - and because I, too, worked closely with Beatrice before she was imprisoned. You can trust me, I assure you. Speaking of him, Alex is not interesting solely in fueling chaos - he is simply a rightfully stressed man and sometimes forgets to maintain order in his trains of thought and actions.

"In summation, it is the destiny she has secured for you children to save this world from annihilation. Whether you approve or not of the methods employed to do so doesn't matter. This is your destiny and is no longer your choice; at this point, you choose between life and death; there are only two paths to follow." Once again, it locked its gaze on each child in turn, making sure they understood him completely. "I will be in contact with each of you. Train well." With that, it tipped its head graciously, turned and did the same to the Oaks, then popped out of sight. Though the doctors were able to move again; neither took the initiative to, though, and stood silently, rocked to their cores by what had transpired.

EDIT
((Just to be clear, there is no verifiable knowledge of any of the legendary pokémons' existence save for the fact that Richard Allbrite seems to have some sort of Moltresian power. Sorry I didn't clarify that in the opening of the RP. The more you know biggrin ))

When Juno saw mewtwo, all she could think about was how he was in her room the previous night. While kind of odd, it wasn't something to worry about. "You were going to lie to us," she murmured. She'd heard every word Lucas had said and while she wasn't happy with the truth, she much preferred it to whatever bullshit the Oaks were going to spout. Juno wanted so much to ignore Lucas and his speech, but he hadn't been lying. It might have been the posture or the professors looks, but she knew he hadn't lied to any of the others.

So now it really was up to the kids to save the world. They had no choice but to face it...so face it she would. Mew was the final goal. Legendary beasts were right before that. She wasn't going to go head to head with a legendary beast without being prepared. "Hey Ramsden," she slowly grabbed the arm that was playing with the holdster. "don't we have to contact the commander back at Riverdale?" Unlike her earlier self-righteous self, Juno was pale and shocked. I still can't have Ramsden scaring the professors away...not that we know they'll even tell the truth.

------

Alex stayed in the background close to the door and was as shocked as everyone else. Legendary beasts? Mewtwo again? Africa?! This was not how she expected to start the day. And now...

Now what was she going to do?

As much as she liked the kids, she couldn't leave this country. She had a reverend to kill and revenge to fulfill. And really, it had only been one day of knowing them...maybe they were only pretending to like her to keep her from killing them. As of then, she had two goals in life: protect the kids and get revenge. But protecting them is a form of revenge too. It had also been a type of redemption. So didn't she get them to their destination safely? Didn't that mean she fulfilled her obligation to them? So now she owed them nothing. So now I can go find Beati. But the kids needed help. Maybe she could stay for the week until everyone left and then search for the Exterminant. Sadly, if the choice were between those children and Beati's head on a platter, she'd choose Beati.

This was too much for the morning. She was itching for a hit. Maybe she could sneak out and--NO. No she wouldn't. She would stay right there and find a doctor who could help her.