[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Dagny whistles. "Wow. That is a lot of data I can use to refine my search...oh, and yes, it is probably very hard on you to hear such news. Don't worry, I've made it my personal goal to find out what happened to him. It will help a lot in trying to bring down their organization. And Almanac has started to affect the economy of Stair City, so that's another personal goal I have. And I always get what I want."

"Let's see. We'll give the gauntlet back to Detective Thrawn, but don't tell him Porygon is inside. Porygon will fly back to me if a signal comes through, or he will disable it after, let's say, three days and return anyway. I'll send a few Pokemon to Cress City, with Tanuki's permission, to keep an eye on things."

She shifts in her chair, and a trio of Magnemite fly out of her robes to hover over Nathan.

"Do you have a way into the Genesect statue base?"

"I'm going to focus on neutralizing the mole. It won't be easy if she decides to put up a fight, but we'll see. Leave that to me and me alone."

"It's probable that Almanac has put as many legal separations between themselves and the Scimitars as possible. I've already run into a few firewalls, shell corporations, and 'creative' file systems. That's another thing I'll work on cracking. Somewhere in one of their bases, they will have a crucial server. If you can get me even a second of physical access to that, all their secrets will be mine. Here are two flash drives. Get them into that server if you get the chance. A Porygon could help you as well. Here's a picture of some typical hi-security servers like Almanac would use...it's printing from my desk now. And this is illegal, so be discreet."

"Right now, we should be able to get Juni put away for life, but it'll be harder to prove that connection to Almanac. Just keep contacting me whenever you happen to come up with any evidence. If the Scimitars are pursuing you - and they will probably increase that now that you've brought low their leader - you may have more chances to collect evidence. Just be careful you don't run into too many at once...like, what, thirty of them?"

"Anything else?"

Ruins

"At some point, I'm gonna try to get a permit and explore the lower levels of the Ruins, and I'm going to be looking for him while I'm there.  Or at least for clues about where he might have gone if I haven't heard anything concrete by then.  A Ruin Maniac named Elminster said my dad was probably driven into the Kadabra Chambers, a place that none are said to have returned from...he can handle himself, but that's gonna be a tricky place to search...he's very capable of getting out of the Ruins, though.  There were some baby pokemon that were apparently looking for him, and they found him just before he got attacked.  I learned later that the baby pokemon weren't in the Ruins after the attacks and their leader seemed happy, so that means my dad probably had Skarmory fly the babies out of the Ruins and to safety.  Probably pressed further in afterwards to continue his search for those artifact instead of also getting out himself, knowing him...I bet Luxray barely has any time to rest, being in a dangerous place like that...but considering my dad probably took along his team from his Elite 4 challenge given he definitely knew he was going to be exploring the Ruins, he's probably fine..."

"Awesome.  Seems like a good compromise.  Just make sure the thing doesn't self destruct like it was supposed to.  The only reason it hasn't yet is because of the time travel shenanigans, according to Juni."

Infiltration

"There's a hidden entrance in the wall in the middle of a corridor with double doors at both ends in a restaurant in Wineberry called the Mienfood Eatery.  I've also got a key I can use to enter their base at Wineberry any time, plus some of their robes I can use as a disguise.  And I could also enter their Lake Chicory base if I can find the locked entrance to it.  There's apparently an additional entrance to their base with no locked doors in a secret tunnel underneath the lake, but that one's rather heavily defended according to Juni."

Not much Nathan can do or say about the mole, so he just nods.

"Long story short, I can get into the Wineberry Scimitar base at any time.  Found a lot of documents there the first time we visited it, too.  Ironically, they insist they aren't a criminal organization in one of them.  In another, they had some rather extensive notes on Genesect and detailed that they'd stolen Team Plasma's blueprints for their model of the bug, which is why I'm worried about them potentially trying to revive a Genesect Fossil for their own use...and then there were their notes on the Castaclay and the recently stolen Neverstone as well.  I wrote all of that info down for future reference when we came across it, and I'm working on trying to figure out what to do about the Genesect Fossil situation. I might have to talk to you about that at a later point."

"I've got Porygon-Z still.  It can definitely help me with that data decryption.  I've also got Rotom, but...still working on that one.  Their servers don't stand a chance, though."  Nathan puts the flash drives and the pictures in his bag.

Caution

"Yeah, uh...30 is definitely a reasonable number, given that there were around 50 or so when we finally saw them in person while we were in Mt. Sentry...Juni's group was maybe...at least 20 strong or something?  We fought 8 of them, including Juni, and KOed all of them except Juni.  Then the Cress Police captured another 5 of the grunts when they raided the warehouse the Scimitars were hiding in.  I'm assuming the rest took Thrawn to Lake Chicory and the two Campers to Earthstar Forest before scattering...there were probably more than 13 of them if they managed to overpower 8 other trainers while only 8 of them surrounded and fought us.  They definitely work in large groups whenever out on missions...we'll definitely be careful. If we weren't on their hitlist after the Mt. Sentry mission was a failure for them, we're definitely going to be on there now."

Other Things

"...oh yeah, two more things.  The two campers that were kidnapped along with Thrawn and not saved were dropped off in Earthstar Forest on Juni's orders to 'test their skills', apparently.  I haven't yet found out if anyone saw them again after that, though.  Their names were Ballin and Jill, and they both had a Sandslash each.  And the other thing...Juni could Mega Evolve her Alakazam while wearing that gauntlet, and it bypassed the normal bond requirements as long as the pokemon is in one of the pokeballs on their belt and holding its respective Mega Stone.  However, she doesn't know if she would have been able to Mega Evolve her Alakazam if she was actually trying to use it in battle.  Based on how she treated her pokemon, though, I'm not sure she would have been able to.  They all seemed pretty miserable for the most part.  I don't think it entirely rules out the possibility that whoever threatened me with his Mega Pinsir had a Key Stone, but...it's still something to consider.  And while Almanac and/or the Scimitars hadn't made synthetic Mega Stones yet in 2014, they have them now, in 2017, and I wouldn't be surprised if they used the gauntlets' functions as an artificial Key Stone as a part of the development process for those."

"I think that's every...oh, wait, no, one more thing: Juni almost killed Calam when we first fought her.  He hates her with a passion, to put it mildly.  I convinced him to not maul her, but it wasn't easy.  A Nidoqueen's Superpower almost killed him outright due to that Ally Switch she and her grunts pulled off.  Might be worth noting."

"Okay...I think that's everything.  If there's nothing else, I guess these Magnemite and I need to head to Cress now.  They've got a job to do, and I...need to go break the news to my mom and uncle...*deep breathe*...and get some rest soon.  It's been a loooooonnnnngggg three hours, in ways I don't think anyone besides Bill would fully believe, given he was helping us out while all of that time travel was going on.  Keep me updated on that break in case.  I'll also make sure Detective Thrawn knows you're working on this.  Do you want me to deliver the gauntlet to him now, or do you want me to tell him to come pick it up?"



Well then, once any lingering questions are answered, I suppose it's time to Teleport back to Cress (with Ditto turned Gallade's help once again).  Before we get to where exactly Nathan's going, though, do the Magnemite go about their own business once they get to Cress?