[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Dragonstrike]

"I'll start by having Porygon intercept any incoming transmissions to the gauntlet."

"For your story...I need to know everything you know about the Scimitar's tech, and everything you know about their criminal behavior, and finally everything you know about their connections to Almanac."

"Detective Thrawn is probably going to want that gauntlet as evidence later, so I'll tell him to get in contact with you later if that's okay with ya."

"Alright.  I'll start with the tech."  

Tech

"The grunts use simpler gauntlets you wear like any normal gauntlet.  They're not as powerful as their superiors', and they were primarily made of leather instead of metal 3 years ago.  We brought back some of those with us as well, and Thrawn has 'em in the evidence pile.  The more powerful gauntlets, as you can see, are literal metal hands.  They have to chop off a part of their arms to use those, so Juni's missing a hand.  As for how they work...first off, they have wires that hook to belts and that have very special pokeballs that require keys to open that only the Scimitar leaders carry around.  The pokeballs contain pokemon, and the Scimitars essentially borrow/copy a pokemon's abilities and use them as their own, sometimes even changing the effects of the moves.  Juni's group used Ally Switch to inflict a special kind of variation of confusion that made pokemon owned by other trainers temporarily obey their orders instead of the original trainers', for example.  The metal hands also have to be wired into their nerves to function properly, and it apparently takes a ton of training to learn how to use the gauntlets properly."

Almanac

"Connections to Almanac: they're 100% partnered with them.  Both Juni and her grunt admitted as much, and there's a Scimitar base hidden in the Almanac Labs on the Cress Cliffs.  Earth Scimitars apparently do a lot more to directly help Almanac than the Water Scimitars do, but both are provided tech from the company to use and/or test.  That probably includes the gauntlets if I had to guess, given how advanced they are.  It probably also includes some of the technology the Water Scimitars use around their bases, which are based around using replicas of Genesect's various Drives as keys of sorts.  Fairly complex stuff.  That Genesect statue in Wineberry is apparently also a robot in disguise, and isn't just concealing the entrance to one of their bases."

Crimes

"As for what could potentially be considered crimes...let me list a few." 

- There's the attempted kidnapping of Shiva during the Little Cup, obviously. 

- There's that 3 year old case of attacking a man in the Skull Ruins, followed by attacking a large group of trainers and Detective Thrawn immediately afterwards in a bid to keep things quiet. 

- There's stealing a Neverstone from Professor Mallorn, which we'd found in the Water Scimitar Base in Wineberry awhile back.  Mallorn would have to confirm that we found it, though, because I used it awhile back since Mallorn let us keep it.  There was also something the Scimitars called Castaclay, which was their own...or Almanac's, I'm not sure which...devolution solution, albeit not as successful a solution as Mallorn's Neverstone, which is why they wanted to steal the Neverstone and reverse engineer it.  We gave Mallorn a sample of that awhile back, and he probably still has that laying around somewhere in that lab of his.  

- Hidden base underneath Wineberry is a big one. They basically duped the town into letting them build the place without a permit or anything from what I gathered from the Rangers there about when the Genesect statue was 'built'. Seemed like a generous offer, sure, but the residents didn't even stop to question what the constructors needed all those materials for, it seems...

- And someone attacking me and threatening to kill me and my pokemon with a Mega Pinsir before disappearing into the Water Scimitar Base. 

- There's the recent break-in, as well...

- A Scimitar also attacked me, Shiva, Ventus, and some other people on Route 1 when we were trying to get through the swamp that had shown up there with the help of some kind folks with an RV and a Mr. Mime.  Well, they never actually attacked us directly, but they did try to get the RV stuck in the swamp.  And Gallade hated that man's guts, too.  He's got some reeeeaaallll big beef with Almanac and the Scimitars for...well, whatever they did to him exactly.  I really only know that when I found Ralts a year ago, he was almost dead, and Mallorn and I don't think the more recent entries on the Ralts line in the Almanac showing up after I found Ralts is a coincidence. 

- And the last one is from our recent jaunt through Mt. Sentry's Labyrinth, where we met Celebi.  The Scimitars attacked us to try and 'remove us from the equation' when they were done tailing us, and they were using brainwashed members of the Solosis line to do so, one of which I have in my own roster of pokemon to choose from due to Celebi's assistance.  That last one might not be as believable, though. 

- Oh, and as of 2014, Juni said they had some kind of mole planted in the E4, but Juni didn't know how much longer they'd be able to get information from them for, and that was three years ago.  If they haven't been found out yet, though, they might still be there today.  

"That's all the wrongdoings I know of."

"...the real kicker about that three year old case though is who they attacked in the Skull Ruins three years ago.  Eyewitness descriptions were all merely 'he looked really average', but I got some more information from Juni and the grunt because they'd been getting info on him for who knows how long.  The victim didn't have a permit to explore the deeper levels of the Ruins according to Thrawn, but he was on official League business according to Juni, looking for certain artifacts in the Ruins, so I'm assuming it was on the down low.  She kept calling him a 'hotshot trainer' who could go toe to toe with the Elite 4, and they didn't want to engage him directly as a result.  The grunt said he had a Skarmory and a Luxray.  And Juni said his name was...Marco.  And the only person I can think of who fits all of the above descriptions is...my dad.  That incident happened about a week after my mom and I had started to wonder why he hadn't returned from his trip yet or sent a message saying he'd been delayed, too."

Nathan lets out another breath.  "...well?  That enough info for ya?"

Gallade is out as usual and leaning against the wall, paying careful attention to everything that's going on...just in case.  It pays to be alert in situations like this, even if the person you're talking to is someone you trust for the most part...