Welcome to Gaia! ::

Keiko and I stared at Sub as he made his offer, in silence for a bit until Keiko couldn't keep her confusion bottled up. "What the ~!~!?" she spat, her face twisting into a fierce anger. "THAT'S the reason I can't be with my children? That... that's so STUPID!" she roared, wisps of Frustration lifting off her body. It seemed pretty clear she was about to explode into rage, so I grabbed her hand and patted her back gently, trying to get her to calm down. It had been so long since I'd seen Rala that my ability to sense emotions has faded away entirely by now. Fortunately, she didn't seem to see much of a point in going berserk in a room full of friends and calmed down, but it was clear she still hated the idea that we'd been working with Ein. To be honest, the thought of that made my desire to take his life in the heat of the moment feel like the right call, but hindsight's 20/20.

Turning my focus back to the matter at hand as Keiko and I sat back down, I turned to Sub. "I quite like the idea of proving our innocence, but Blizz has a point. How exactly do you plan to go about that?" I asked. I still trusted Sub to some degree, but proving our innocence would be a moot point if we made things worse for ourselves in the process. Things were bad enoough as they were.

“And pray tell what makes you certain SWIPE hadn’t? Freth ended up telling me at some point we ran off before we went off to Rustboro that these guys had to be around for a while. At the very least, sometime before we went off to Galar for that tournament. She mentioned about WHITE going around there to investigate possible Ultra Space stuff that happened over there. That is to say, they knew of Eris, the Ziton, and Crystal.” I said to him. “That’s at least roughly a couple of years they could have done that, never mind of any other parties that could have been in and out of that tower just by happenstance. Never mind, even if, somehow, we do find anything like that, what makes you think they’re going to buy the mad ravings of that lunatic? The evidence would have to be iron clad and delivered somehow where they can't refute that we changed it in some fashion."

Aile would show up right before Sub turned off the TV, shaking her head. She'd keep herself quiet as she listened to Sub explain his plan, shivering when he mentioned going to Realgam Tower. Arceus, that place. Filled with more of Ein's mad experiments. And then his room where he actually lived in and let himself go to waste. The smell was nauseous and the squalor was disgusting. She couldn't argue what the depths of his obsession probably drove him to do, and Sub was probably right there. However... "Provided they accept that information, and that no one touched that info, how are we getting there? We letting this location get burned by dropping everything and teleporting there? Or we hijacking some slower method of getting over to Orre?"

"I think I can answer both of those questions." A voice interjects. Darts, with Ogerpon hot on his heels, made an appearance in the main room with everyone else, the latter's green Teal Mask firmly at the forefront as the two come in. "As some of you now know," The Giratina hybrid explains, nodding to Sub as he did. "Sub here sent me on a mission while the rest of you were off at the Academy, and part of that involved taking me through Orre for quite a while as I was searching for any sort of news or whereabouts of S-22. While I was there looking, it only made sense to retrace my steps and start at the beginning of the end, where S-22 had vanished. I've seen Realgam Fortress' remains."

He shuffles around in his jacket a bit and pulls out one of the printed maps that he had retrieved from his mail pile on his return, with the seismographic information written on them, spreading it out for the group to look at. "I talked to some of the workers at the tower when I was there poking around and there's no way SWIPE has any access to any more information than any other outside source simply because no one has had access to it. The government is running a thorough investigation and excavation project on the thing and they're essentially treating it like an archeological dig of an ancient tomb or something, because of the risk." He points to the main entrance, tapping it with a finger. The intial foyer and areas where we staged our attack, navigated through the tower, fought with S-22 originally, and eventually confronted with and defeated Ein at the summit," As he goes, he taps portions of the tower on the diagram, trending upwards to the top. "Are all thoroughly explored because we essentially blasted a massive hole straight through them all with the fighting. But like I mentioned there are workers working on excavating all of the other side rooms, sub-basements, laboratories, and what have you that are on the initial schematics in addition to whatever renovations Ein made in the years he had control of the place. And, from what they told me, it's been incredibly slow going clearing these rooms out because, surprise surprise, they are full of traps, horrors beyond comprehension, and other lovely surprises our favorite scientist was well known for."

Darts looks round at the assembled group peering over the map. "So while that means we'll probably have to get our hands dirty digging into the place, everything in the deeper portions of the tower are one hundred percent untouched from the last time we were there. If there is any concrete proof our best bet is to try and find it in the depths of Realgam. Plus, we can help clean up a bit of Ein's mess which is something we've always done best. Even if they don't believe us," He acknowledges Blizz's worry with the tilt of his crest. "We can't even cross that bridge without some kind of evidence that splits their narrative open."

Letting that simmer for a second in the open air, the jacketed Snagem turns to acknowledge Aile's question next. "As for how we can get there... let's just say there's been a breakthrough on that front too by me-OWCH." He hisses in pain, hopping up and down a little as Ogerpon had just wound back and kicked him in the shin.

"Pyon po pon po pon." She explains, turning back to the rest of the group calmly. What Just Darts means is that we have made a breakthrough on this front. "Pon poko pon." And by we, I mainly mean myself. Just Darts was there, I guess.

"Oh is that how you're going to spin this one, huh?" The gambler hisses through gritted teeth. "You didn't even know what a computer was before I showed you..."

Ignoring his protests, Ogerpon waves over her shoulder to indicate the group should follow her. "Pon pon." Come, come see what we've found in the room of silent Pokemon. She insists, turning back to head on towards the Battle Simulation room, her sandals clacking off the floor. Darts shrugs, waving over his shoulder as he follows his Pokemon back to where they had been spending the majority of the last couple of days.

Deo, how he wanted all this to end. He figured that he could do a lot more than what was already done, but how was the issue. He walked in as Darts was explaining the details. He would chime in for a little second after Darts and Ogerpon was finished. "Realgam fortress? Only heard of it through passing. Never been there, to my knowledge." Deo was more confused than ever. He could have been there when he was hybridized. He wasn't sure. All he knew was that SWIPE needed to back off for this one.

He would then proceed to follow the little ogerpon. Hopefully he would be able to proceed with figuring out why SWIPE was more than hateful about all this. If they were correct, with Ein keeping intact notes, they might find the diamond in the rough

Sub would perk up as Darts showed up and chimed in, answering a lot of questions and concerns people had for Sub's idea before the Snagem leader could address them himself, not that he minded in the least. Sub would glance at the diagram of the tower, or fortress as Ein dubbed it, recalling all the events that transpired in that accursed structure, none of his memories good. "Ein most certainly kept all his bigger, more horrid, secrets deeper in the tower with the worse of his monstrosities. For better or worse said secrets are probably the best guarded, which could be a boon for us...provided we don't become victims to one of Ein's classic booby traps. I still think about the bees..." He said with a shudder. "Don't worry, Monique, I have a feeling your illusion abilities will come in handy in that place." He replied to the woman's inquiry.

When Darts tried to reveal a 'breakthrough' his pal Ogerpon would interject and apparently take issue with something the hybrid said, what the issue was he didn't know as he could not understand Pokespeech. So instead the Snagem leader just chuckled and shook his head as these little squabbles were normal for these two. It wasn't until the Pokemon motioned for them to follow her and Darts did so that Sub would finally understand what was going on and with a shrug followed after the two. "I guess they have something to show us." He said to the others as he followed along.

Aile would raise an eyebrow as she listened to Darts peeking at the seismographic maps, tilting her head. The woman would recall again their initial time there, and to know that there was more underneath was somewhat astounding, if not somewhat concerning. However, if anything, she figured they could manage to make their way through there. They dealt with Ein’s traps at Citadark as well as Realgam, the woman had faith they could make it through more. As long as it was worth it at the end. Curiously, she would follow Darts and Ogerpon after their little interaction, chuckling. What did they discover?


Crystal herself would show up, a closed journal in hand, and just silently listened as well. Her memories of Realgam weren’t… in the best of condition. She remembered she helped get them there, but after that, hazy would be generous. Most of her time was spent thinking, writing her thoughts down in her journal, and getting all of her Pokémon up to speed with their situation. She had even brought Demon Wing out to the Battle Sim when it was free a couple of times, to let him get some pent up aggression out. Honestly, the pseudodragon was more upset that he didn't get a chance to fight more during the escape. Regardless, she would follow the others in the back, curious to see what Darts and Ogerpon discovered. Time to see just how much further behind she was.

"Hm?"
"Huh?"
"What?"

Sol, Cera and Amaranth all found theirselves turning their heads at Darts' interjection, watching as he and Ogerpon came in.

"We're aware, yes, though I'm still left wondering what ultimately came of that," Sol remarked as Darts shuffled around in his jacket. So he'd seen the remains of Realgam Fortress, that made sense. It'd be one of the best places to start.

Cera would perk up only a second later, looking at the map that was pulled out and spread for all to see. Though it was a different map from the one she'd managed to see, she recognized the terminology from the seismographic data being outlined. "Wait! These are... so these were where you looked around..." She couldn't shake feeling like knowing this in a timeframe that didn't involve a full year in the dark would've maybe been the better play. She wanted to be upset about it, call it out, but as Darts went on about the side rooms they ignored during that battle, she knew all too well how dangerous it'd be for almost anyone else. Her mouth remained open as if she did want to speak, only to slowly close over the next few seconds.

"I'm not sure if I should be glad we weren't thorough enough back there for this stroke of luck, or apologizing to the workers for the sleepless nights they've surely been subject to at best." Sol would continue to pore over the map, taking in as much as he could while Darts explained things. "Still, I guess it's a sort of luck that we happen to also be the best janitors Ein's always detested. It's as good a lead as any, albeit probably one of the most dangerous we've had in a while. And it still might be safer than dealing with SWIPE."

Amaranth's eyes were glued to the map as each part was pointed out, hearing the remarks about the side rooms and other areas that the team hadn't gone through during that day. Almost as if the team's business there hadn't truly concluded. Which meant seeing even more unspeakable nightmares of Ein's conjuring. Her growing unease was apparent as she backed up a step, screaming at herself mentally that she was better than this. That she did survive all this.

"Anyways, the... room of silent Pokemon? I'm not sure I follow what... er." Unsure of how exactly to address Ogerpon, Cera shook her head and cleared her throat to move swiftly past her awkward words. "R-right, I'm not sure I follow what's meant by that?"

Getting no answer other than to follow, the trio proceeded alongside the others upstairs towards the Battle Sim. wondering what this big discovery was.