[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Mallorn will meet you in Cress whenever you choose. He's sitting on a crate, but rises to meet you. His Rapidash is grazing nearby - it gives you the staredown when it sees you, then goes back to eating.

"Shiva! Nathan! It's been a long time since you left my lab, boss! Your Pokedex entries show you've traveled much of Creshire - more than half of it already - and seen a ton of Pokemon. You've trained hard and won some difficult battles. Only about 5% of trainers who leave our labs with a starter Pokemon collect all six gym badges, and you've got four and five badges respectively. Nathan said your party is in Elanor, so I imagine you'll soon have a fifth, Shiva. Howl has nothing on Fairy types. How is Cottonee? Er, I don't mean to get distracted, boss! You've seen all kinds of Pokemon and learned to use all kinds of moves. But something especially rare to experience in Creshire is a Hidden Machine."

He goes off on a little lecture about what that is.

"Well, I happen to have one! It came to me for research purposes, and I was granted permission to use it as my research saw fit. I must return it in at the end of June. Guess what? I'm going to loan it to you two for your journey into the Skull Ruins. There's no reception down there, and it's very dark, and electronics often fail. Even flashlights. But this HM never fails... it's Flash! Most Pokemon can learn it, though not all. I'm sure you two will know just what to do with it. Bring it back to me when you're done, and whatever you do, don't lose it. It's a mark of my faith in you that I'm trusting you with taking this into the second layer of the Skull Ruins. Questions?"

Nathan mostly only has a few small comments.

"...and I'll hopefully have 6 badges soon.  Plan to challenge Howl later today myself."

"...yes, we know what an HM is, Professor."

"...huh.  Gonna be...weird having more than one pokemon that knows that move, to be honest.  I'm certain it will come in handy, though, and I'm sure Solomon's going to be really excited to learn it.  Thanks, Professor.  I actually do have a question or two, but they're about a...different topic.  Mind if I talk with you privately in a sec?"

Nathan has no major complaints if Shiva wants to hold on to the FLASH HM for now.

[Iron]

Spoiler

Mallorn will meet you in Cress whenever you choose. He's sitting on a crate, but rises to meet you. His Rapidash is grazing nearby - it gives you the staredown when it sees you, then goes back to eating.

"Shiva! Nathan! It's been a long time since you left my lab, boss! Your Pokedex entries show you've traveled much of Creshire - more than half of it already - and seen a ton of Pokemon. You've trained hard and won some difficult battles. Only about 5% of trainers who leave our labs with a starter Pokemon collect all six gym badges, and you've got four and five badges respectively. Nathan said your party is in Elanor, so I imagine you'll soon have a fifth, Shiva. Howl has nothing on Fairy types. How is Cottonee? Er, I don't mean to get distracted, boss! You've seen all kinds of Pokemon and learned to use all kinds of moves. But something especially rare to experience in Creshire is a Hidden Machine."

He goes off on a little lecture about what that is.

"Well, I happen to have one! It came to me for research purposes, and I was granted permission to use it as my research saw fit. I must return it in at the end of June. Guess what? I'm going to loan it to you two for your journey into the Skull Ruins. There's no reception down there, and it's very dark, and electronics often fail. Even flashlights. But this HM never fails... it's Flash! Most Pokemon can learn it, though not all. I'm sure you two will know just what to do with it. Bring it back to me when you're done, and whatever you do, don't lose it. It's a mark of my faith in you that I'm trusting you with taking this into the second layer of the Skull Ruins. Questions?"

Nathan mostly only has a few small comments.

"...and I'll hopefully have 6 badges soon.  Plan to challenge Howl later today myself."

"...yes, we know what an HM is, Professor."

"...huh.  Gonna be...weird having more than one pokemon that knows that move, to be honest.  I'm certain it will come in handy, though, and I'm sure Solomon's going to be really excited to learn it.  Thanks, Professor.  I actually do have a question or two, but they're about a...different topic.  Mind if I talk with you privately in a sec?"

Nathan has no major complaints if Shiva wants to hold on to the FLASH HM for now.

"Right you are, boss! Shiva, you're welcome to play with Rapidash while you wait. Rapidash, cooperate, ok, boss?" You go off somewhere else in the park.

[Dragonstrike]

"Right you are, boss! Shiva, you're welcome to play with Rapidash while you wait. Rapidash, cooperate, ok, boss?" You go off somewhere else in the park.

Nathan and Gallade both look rather serious as Nathan brings up a new topic.  "Out of curiosity, does the name Cosh ring any bells, Professor?"

[Iron]

"Right you are, boss! Shiva, you're welcome to play with Rapidash while you wait. Rapidash, cooperate, ok, boss?" You go off somewhere else in the park.

Nathan and Gallade both look rather serious as Nathan brings up a new topic.  "Out of curiosity, does the name Cosh ring any bells, Professor?"

"Not at all. Why did you ask? Is that a trainer?"

[Dragonstrike]

"Not at all. Why did you ask? Is that a trainer?"

"He's a member of the Scimitars.  A rather high ranking one, too.  Cosh might not even be his actual name.  He attacked us back on Route 01, and Gallade hates, and I mean HATES in all caps, him specifically.  He mentioned something about one of your 'pet projects' being the only reason he didn't do more except annoy us by almost leaving us stranded in that swamp that he'd created on Route 01 during the Spring Festival.  Any idea what he might have meant?  It's been bothering me a little lately because we've been running into the Scims more frequently recently, and for all I know right now, whatever was stopping them before isn't dissuading them any more."

[Iron]

"Not at all. Why did you ask? Is that a trainer?"

"He's a member of the Scimitars.  A rather high ranking one, too.  Cosh might not even be his actual name.  He attacked us back on Route 01, and Gallade hates, and I mean HATES in all caps, him specifically.  He mentioned something about one of your 'pet projects' being the only reason he didn't do more except annoy us by almost leaving us stranded in that swamp that he'd created on Route 01 during the Spring Festival.  Any idea what he might have meant?  It's been bothering me a little lately because we've been running into the Scims more frequently recently, and for all I know right now, whatever was stopping them before isn't dissuading them any more."

"Hardly anyone goes by their real name. I'm surprised you still do. But I must say, Nathan, I think YOU were the 'pet project.' You, or Shiva, or Ventus, or what's-his-name, that assistant I had for a few years. I've been more involved in you and your friends than I usually am with a crop of new trainers, and you've gone father than most of them already. With more great things to come! I didn't have anything else active near the Spring Festival, boss, so I think you're it!"

[Dragonstrike]

"Hardly anyone goes by their real name. I'm surprised you still do. But I must say, Nathan, I think YOU were the 'pet project.' You, or Shiva, or Ventus, or what's-his-name, that assistant I had for a few years. I've been more involved in you and your friends than I usually am with a crop of new trainers, and you've gone father than most of them already. With more great things to come! I didn't have anything else active near the Spring Festival, boss, so I think you're it!"

"...well, I bet Cosh wishing right now that he had left us in that swamp without our pokemon after all, because Gallade, Calam, and I intend to ruin his criminal organization however we can.  Almanac is apparently little more than a front for the Scimitars at this point.  I'm not even sure they're separate organizations any more.  Still, I wonder how Cosh knew if he was referring to us directly, given that we'd only just started our journey at that point...we hadn't even visited Ginger Town for the first time at that point...in any case, I find the whole alias thing a little silly, to be honest.  If I'm going to go down in the history books, I want my actual name to be there, not some fake name I cooked up just because I thought it sounded cool.  I have little reason to hide who I am, and...well, surprisingly few have actually even cared to ask who I am in the first place, if you can believe that.  Thought that the thugs who attacked my dad three years ago would have wondered why the heck I looked so similar to their most recent victim, but nope, they didn't even seem to think to question that, apparently.  Or if they did, they didn't voice it."

Gallade relaxes a little as Nathan moves to a different topic.

"...so, this one's a weirder question I'm moreso asking out of curiosity, but...I actually encountered a Dedenne with suuuuuper strong electromagnetic abilities recently.  She's hardly more than a baby, but her electric attacks are...surprisingly potent.  They actually made my pokedex run almost completely out of control.  I think it was due to the MSC in the tech.  Think abilities like hers might be able to keep MSC based electronics running down in the Ruins' lower layers?"

[Iron]

"Almanac... damn them. Oo, a Dedenne? Those are really rare, and poorly understood. It makes sense that her abilities would interact with the MSC in basically all electronics. Keep her Pokeball'd near any PCs, please! When you get back, maybe I could borrow her? But I think you should take her into the ruins, boss! It's definitely worth a try, but I'll warn you that amplifiers have never worked in the past. There's strange things going on down there, more than just the load of rock they call a ceiling."

[Dragonstrike]

"Almanac... damn them. Oo, a Dedenne? Those are really rare, and poorly understood. It makes sense that her abilities would interact with the MSC in basically all electronics. Keep her Pokeball'd near any PCs, please! When you get back, maybe I could borrow her? But I think you should take her into the ruins, boss! It's definitely worth a try, but I'll warn you that amplifiers have never worked in the past. There's strange things going on down there, more than just the load of rock they call a ceiling."

"Maybe we can arrange something, but she is only a baby, even though she already knows how to use Thunder for some reason.  No, I'm not joking.  A baby, currently 4 inch tall electric mouse pokemon can use one of the most Lethal moves a Pokemon possibly could and has an obscene amount of electrical strength to back it up.  I'm very, very glad that she didn't decide to try shocking my pokemon or me for fun, because that would have totally hurt.  A lot.  Even if her amplification abilities don't work, she'd at least be a strong fighter.  I did discover that giving her some MSC to hold can boost her abilities as if she was holding a Magnet.  But yeah, definitely going to keep her in her pokeball around sensitive electronics.  The fact that my pokedex was registering entries for wild pokemon I hadn't even caught yet was kinda weird in and of itself.  Honestly, I was wondering if her abilities might be or could be made strong enough to make the Scimitars' gauntlets start malfunctioning..."

"...yeah, a lot going on in that place.  More stuff than I'd care to list, to be honest...the vines and the crown wearing Claydol were more than enough of an indicator of that by themselves...I'm hoping we can find what we need in there quickly and then get the heck out of there, but I just have this feeling that we're going to be running into a lot more than we might be expecting...if we find my dad in there, though, he could probably help us..."

[Spiritmon]

Spoiler

Heart also send a message to Nathan about the TM Thunder he found where he meet those Electrode. And he is willing to trade for something.

Nathan's eyes go wide as he reads that text!  That's a TM that a certain elespider would LOVE to abuse!

That's totally a TM I'd be willing to trade for.  Need to hold on to at least a little cash, though...how does $3500 and some training for some of your pokemon sound?

Sounds good to me! As for training...I have two options I was thinking about either Iron Defense, Ice Punch, Psychic, Zen Headbutt or Bullet Punch as possible moves for Metang and Iron Defense or Rock Blast for Heracross to give gim a buff move or maybe a move capable of counter Flying and Fire types. I have more preference with the second one, but hey, options need to be open right?

When Nathan enter the Pokemon Center he find Heart in his room, reading some of his notes, with Moltres Egg resting on a pyre (you know the roll @Iron, craft roll). And for the second time of his life, he also sees the strange book with chains around it, and a big lock in the middle, with the already symbol of the ArcHearts around it. "Hey Nathan, howdy mate. Ready to make the trade?"