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"Hm, more connections to Ultra Space...I would be more surprised but at this point nothing surprises me with all we have been through." Sub said with a sigh. "So the professors were getting close to uncovering the secrets of the multiverse and whatever they found in Area Zero is what led them to said secrets. Said area where you found Pokemon from different time- I mean, different realities, if Eris' theory holds true. And while the public understanding is the professors are still down there, in a pit filled with monsters from different realities, we have no way to confirm if they are still alive down there. And stranger still the League nor the Academy seem concerned with the status of said professors, instead they are more concerned with covering up anything and everything to do with Area Zero."

"I'm going to look more into this crystal you brought back, see if we can't divine any information from it. For now try and relax. If I do find out anything you'll be the first to know." He said to Freth.

Those few days following the events at the Academy and elsewhere felt like some of the longest days Sol could recall, and it wasn't even Ein's fault this time. The vacation going poorly almost didn't matter; he felt bad for the rest of the team, wanting them to simply get to see his home region and experience something new. But he'd been beside himself ever since Aden and Aile's run-in with the Ziton and what followed after arrival. Attempts at sleep were rough at best, being unable to stop seeing all the stab wounds around Aden's chest. He knew he only saw the last of them, but one doesn't simply live with two part-Celebi hybrids without considering time travel happening. Those wounds served as a harsh reminder of that fact, and a past reminder alongside.

"Like her," he had said when he first saw the wounds on Aden. How could he not be reminded of that night years ago in Agate? The team had begun to reform off in Ecruteak City, with Aden and Cera going there. He'd thought of joining around the same time, but he'd been talked into staying back. Give Aden a chance to learn from the others and expand his world, and maybe get Cera out of helicoptering over him so much in the process. At least wait a while first. So, he did. That lasted up to that one night. Something had woken him up, only to see his wife wasn't present. He waited a couple of minutes at first, figured maybe it was nothing more than a glass of water or a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Nothing unusual. But then five minutes had passed. Ten minutes, and a sense that something had been amiss. He got out of bed and looked around the house.

She wasn't present.

His concern only grew as he found his way outside now, thinking to now check the Relic Forest. Maybe she just went there instead, so he did his best to keep those concerns in check. It wasn't that unusual of an occurrence, after all. More than likely, she'd just gone there for a while and he'd see there wasn't anything to worry about-

She was on the ground. Laying there. Her clothes were tattered, like she'd been through a fight. One that looked like it transpired much earlier in the day at least. A call of her name came as he rushed to her side, hoping there'd be some sort of response. Stirring, a noise, something. Nothing came at first, and as he got closer, it was evident the color and warmth had left her body. It left some time ago. Not wanting to believe what he saw, he'd try to gently shake her, only for the reality of it all to ensue as he both got nothing and further saw that whatever happened wasn't recent. And he was fairly sure why, too. Looking away and slamming his eyes shut, his hands would clasp around one of hers for a moment, practically standing there for an eternity before finally letting it go. He'd spent the rest of that night there to mourn, the few long days that followed then finding a horrible way of echoing now.

The biggest difference is this time, Aden had managed to survive, if barely. But for how long and if he actually did weren't answers he had, nor were they answers that could be given to him. Doc Owl very well couldn't give more until when- or if- Aden woke up. Cera wasn't able to discern much more than a stark lack of energy that persisted; his psychic energy seemed to be the one thing that was recovering, but she couldn't sense almost anything else. Likewise, the vibrance of his wings' feathers had still yet to return, dull as they were after his attack on the Ziton. Amaranth had her share of concerns too once she was aware of the other happenings; apparently, in the chaos with Team Star, she focused on trying to help the other students as much as she could. Even now, she opted to stay in Paldea instead, wishing to keep helping and otherwise attend classes locally, unsure of how to otherwise help the team for the moment.

With Aden having yet to awake, though, Sol continued to worry that he might lose him too, caught up in Snagem's goings on and luck running out. He'd found himself at the door of the medlab again, going to a chair at Aden's bedside that was familiar to him over the days. He saw Tristen too when he did, and he appeared to be awake... a sigh of relief followed despite his immediate glance at Aden and seeing he still hadn't yet. He wasn't too surprised to not see Blizzard at his side, having just gone past him on the way in. He was glad to see for himself that at least one of them had come to.

"How're you holding up?" He asked, unable to hide his concerns for him as well. "It's good to see you back with us."

---

"...oh. You too?" Cera asked, floating closer to Crystal after entering the HQ's library. She didn't properly know why Crystal was in here too, but recent events gave a few possible clues and it didn't take mind reading to guess it might've been related to a recently-encountered being that belonged in some Lovecraftian tale. "Have you found anything yet? I got impatient trying to catch a moment with Reno."

Aile listened to Reno, though she also wasn’t meeting his gaze. All she was able to do was try to process what her friend was telling her. She felt like it took pretty much nothing to manipulate her, but she was a mere plebian with absolutely no defenses towards psychics. So, how would it have taken that much energy and effort to make her believe it all? Wasn’t this supposed to be some super strong entity? She had absolutely no hope to fight it off, but it needed to put all of that effort into making her believe? …Well, a flying Lysandre should have been the most notable clue, outside of Aden’s time shenanigans. How the hell was a mere human supposed to fly without any help? Huh.

Aile’s gaze would finally jump to Reno as he spoke about what he saw. So, he wound up seeing a brief glimpse of what she saw, eh? Well, at least she couldn’t be accused of being crazy. At least not yet.

Her gaze would then shift over to Tati when Reno mentioned her. She really was the most important Pokémon she had. Whenever she doesn’t have her head on straight in the most critical of times, something happens with Tati where she winds up being the catalyst in some fashion for Aile to pause and think. Against the Ziton, in Hisui, hell, when she realized what Flare was conditioning her towards. All of those moments involved Tatooine. After everything the pair had been through, Tati being a Shadow Flygon, Aile protecting and backing up Tati as a Trapinch while her mom hated her having a ground type. So many other moments she could bring up. A bond forged with so much time and respect and care for each other, it did make sense that a bond like that, one that went so deep and was forged so strong, couldn’t be shoved over by the Ziton that easily. And as for finally breaking out of the Ziton’s mindscrewery, that was her finally putting the pieces together, wasn’t it? Reno may have helped, but doubtful he saw who everyone else was. So, she would have had to put the pieces together herself. That did have to count for something.

Reno would recapture Aile’s attention with his final words, just staring at him. Good enough? But… She kept misstepping and somehow screwed things. And what if something like this happened again? She was apparently lethal without true understanding of the damned thing, what if that happened again, but she knew how to use her artifact? What if?... She looked back and forth between Tati and Reno, letting those words sink in. She was good enough for them. Nothing had happened to her on the immediate, and there had been plenty of time on the inbetween for people to have done or called for something to have happened to Aile. And yet, she was allowed to just be out here picking up archery again for the first time in however many years. There had to be something to what Reno said.

And Aile started to lose it. Slowly at first, and she buried her face in her knees to try and hide it. She sniffled and started to sob, though she did her best to keep it quiet. “But what if… I mean…” She shook her head, trying to get her jumbled thoughts in order. “I… I was supposed to be a tool for people to use to get information and silence people. What if I get used like that against Snagem, not completely unlike what just happened?” She took one more look at Reno and Tatooine, eyes starting to look a little red, before once again hiding her face in her knees. “Dammit Reno… You… You really mean that?”

Her Flyon would practically scoop her into a hug at that point, feeling her trainer start to shake. Tati knew that Reno was right, but she also knew that Aile would need to hear that from someone other than her for it to hit home. Humans could be funny like that sometimes.

____

Crystal looked up at Cera, giving a generally annoyed look. “Annoyingly, no. And that’s with me taking advantage of not really needing any… normal food or sleep.” She let out a sigh, shaking her head. “Sorry, I’m not annoyed with you. Just, what I’ve found here is very little, and doesn’t go beyond what we already know.” The hybrid drummed her golden fingertips on the table, thinking. “There’s got to be some place that could have more information. I just wish I knew where, though.”

Apolla would wind up walking into the library as well, looking at Crystal and Cera before pulling out a chair and jumping on it. “Well, I think I can assume what’s going on here, considering everything. Does bring me back, though. You enjoyed coming in here to read about old places and ruins you’d like to visit some day.”

“Oh, I wish this were about that… though, that’s not a bad idea, actually... Anyways, Apolla, what are you in here for?”

“Oh, yeah, I came to find you,” Apolla replied, ears perking up. “Apparently, Kairos is panicking because the egg we got from the academy hatched, and now a tiny little bell is following him.”

“I.. wha?.. Oh. Oh!” The hybrid burst into laughter after realizing what was going on. “That little Pokémon must think Kai is their parent! Oh, that’s great,” she laughed, her smile growing wide.

-----
Elsewhere in HQ, towards the main area, a Sigilyph would be flying though with a small little Chingling attached to one of his tail feathers(? streamers?), happy as could be. "Mistress Crystal? Has anyone seen Mistress Crystal?" The avian would look around frantically, desperate to find his trainer. "Oh, I am not meant to be raising children. I am not your parent, little one!" He would continue to fly around, the little bell happily jingling as it continued to fly along attached to him,

Sub nodded in response to Freth's comment about going to see Tristen, he had been concerned for the boy and had wanted to check on him but it seemed like it was best to just stay away for now and let him recover. Now that he was awake though, according to Freth, he thought it might still be best to give him some time. "I'm glad he's awake, the poor boy has gone through his fair share lately at no fault on his own. I'll visit him and fill him in on everything that went down...once he has time to fully recover. Right now I feel like the kid needs to focus on recovering and not any of...this...whatever all this is." He sighed. "Thank you, Freth. I'll be in touch with you." He said, implying she was dismissed. He needed to be alone with his thoughts again.

As the Snagems relaxed in HQ or otherwise went about a normal day a strange creature stumbled into the main area. Composed of nine bricks, four making up its body, another four its legs, and a single brick on the top towards the front with a singular blinking eye. Those who did battle with an Ultra invader down in the Silver Labyrinth would recognize it by the name Crystal had given it; Stakataka, except it was much smaller thanks to being composed of fewer bricks. Besides its bricks it also had what could only be described as a small computer server with a single rotating ball camera on top of it.

The miniature Stakataka would look around and beep a few times, its beeps escalating in frequency and volume as if becoming excited, or worse. This wasn't another attack, was it? Revenge for their last encounter?

"...I am not sure, to be honest. I was exposed to a very high dosage of Fairy energy, and my brain decided to rearrange itself and make me and others think I was someone I used to work with back before I was in this world. Illusion and all. If there wasn't a Poison Channeler who vaped in the nurse's office... Who knows what would have happened," I began, handing Doc the prescription. "The nurse there prescribed me iron supplements to counter the Fairy energy."

I felt an involuntary chill as I finished, not from the talking or the temperature in the room but from some other source of energy. I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was, but it unnerved me and threw me off-kilter. Was it something else Fairy-related? "How long will it take to fill this?" I asked, a little on edge.

Rhyme toddles in, looking a little worse for wear this morning. Most notably, her hat is in her hands, short pink hair sticking up in all manner of directions like a static ball of balloon had rubbed all over the strands.
Or she was just chilling in the cave, working through with her Jolteon again what it meant to be a good electric type hybrid. Something like that,
A snack sounded good right about then, but the stack of bricks...with a camera on top...made the Pachirisu hybrid give pause...only to be barreled into by a VERY excitable Yamper hybrid who jumps OFF the pink ones' back and skidding to a stop in front of the blocks.
"Ugh...Zwei..." Rhyme murmurs from the floor, as Zwei begins to wiggle excitedly. "GRAY!! GRAY?! HEY YOU IN THERE!! I like your new look!! That IS you there, right?" The boy calls out loudly to his friend.

After all, GRAY -was- his friend!!