[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Iron]

Firstly, Spira decides to take the Violet Key Stone, and attaches it to the pendant that Shiva gave him that currently contains Leigh's photo.
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To the disc that Kelda gives him, Spira says "I'm guessing this is a TM." He'll check it's contents later.
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Now onto the main event!
As the helm bonds to Spira, ever so briefly, his eyes appear to be ice-blue, before returning to their normal color. He winces as it resizes to fit him; he feels a burning in his very being. Could this be? he thinks; in spite of any reservations he had in the past, he hurridly pulls back his sleeve to check on the Lunar mark...
As he suspected, the Helm's influence inadvertantly fully-awakened his latent connection...
(Effects of this, if you would, @Iron)

The TM contains Sheer Cold.


The Lunar mark is glowing, at first, with black ink. Slowly a pink light creeps across it, and the two colors do battle across your birthmark until they achieve balance. Deep beneath the Earth, you feel the Eye awaken and gaze upon you. 

You feel ready for conflict, and ready to put your enemies into the ground.

You experience a vision! You see the eye, disembodied, floating in the sky. It's surrounded by three legendary forces - Royalty, indicated by a glowing multicolored crown with long arches. Each arch is tipped or lined with different colors of fluorescent gems. Kingdom, indicated by a rippling clay model of Creshire. Knighthood, represented by two jagged sword blades with no hilts, shaped something like thunderbolts. One blade is teal, and the other is yellowish. The Eye is closed until the three symbols draw near, at which point it opens its lid and awakens. 

You shake your head to clear the vision, and notice everyone staring at you. They saw the vision too, floating in the sky directly above Spira's gaze.
Even Terra sees it from the air, just before streaking off.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Oooohhhh, a vision!~ Shiva loves these, and is rather nicely distracted from things as Spira somehow triggered it. She was just petting and climbing on Genie in order to follow after Cosh and Terra in direction Trillium Town, but as that vision came, all her attention was on that one. A slight pity Lilith's not with Shiva at the moment, but at least Delphox is able to watch it with her.

The first thing she does once the miraculous vision ends, is indeed giving her senpai a gaze full of equally confusion and fascination, then she catches herself again and runs up to Spira to grab him by the hand, she's full of excitement and totally thrilled to bits. "Dear heaven, are you okay? How are you feeling, well and sound? And...h-how did you do that, that was SO cool! The... The Helm must have somewhat triggered this vision...." Then she gasps a little, and directly drops what this vision reminded her on:

"Spira, do tell me.... Do you remember these symbols on the TRAPDOOR leaving to the Throne Room down the Ruins, that you found and pointed to us? It's been the Eye, beneath it a sword, a tree and a crown...!! Appearantly representing royalty, kingdom and knighthood....."

[Dragonstrike]

...that was bold of Kelda.  VERY bold.  A decision like that couldn't have been easy.  And it looked like that was going to hurt, too, either now or later.

Of course, that's probably why Mesprit presumably helped Kelda come to that decision, oh so subtly.  Nathan seems to be the only one aware that the subtle little emotional nudge was present, though.  It's a tiny little thing, something that would easily go unnoticed to those who aren't looking for it or aware that it might be a thing that was possibly happening...

While Nathan can only watch as Kelda makes her choice, he's not as surprised by it, unlike everyone else.  He doesn't make any moves to interfere, even when Cosh tries to.  Nathan was the one who started planting the idea that being a part of the Scimitar organization might not be a great idea in the long term, after all.  The idea that their treatment of pokemon is far from ideal...

...the last straw being the responsibility she'd have to bear as the one wearing the Helm is just the force that broke the dam, so to speak.  Not everyone is cut out for 'hero' work.  Or at least, not the kind of 'hero' work that Cosh and the other Scimitars were practicing.  That kind of a decision should be Kelda's alone...

Nathan cannot blame Kelda for wanting to get as far away from this mess as possible for the time being.  So he silently watches as she hitches a ride on that Noivern as it FLIES away, over the mountains to who knows where...though if Nathan had to guess, Kelda will probably end up somewhere in Charring Cross or maybe even Tumbleweed Town.  He doubts Noivern will let her hitchhike for long, and he hopes she doesn't end up lost in the mountains instead of in the safer parts of civilization.  Without her gauntlet, she's just an ordinary human missing a hand, with 4 pokemon at most that all have very little reason to be Happy in her company or Loyal to her...

He hopes that the next time they meet, things will be different for Kelda.  He'll look for her after this is all over.

For now, though, there are other problems to deal with.

----------------------------

The Mist Lord's timing couldn't have been better, because Nathan was about to retort in response to Cosh's statement.  The news that Deoxys is in Trillium of all places and wants to strike a bargain of some kind...

"...wait, Trillium?  Bargain?"

Nathan has a bad feeling about this...

"...oh no...not again...please don't let that mean what I think it might mean..."

------------------------

Spira's vision interrupts things nicely once more, though.

The Eye.  

The pokemon of Royalty, Kingdom, and Knighthood, originally Xerneas, Landorus, and Cobalion...

The Eye awakening when all three have been gathered...

It all just gives Nathan a feeling that this isn't going to be over even after they've dealt with Deoxys.

...and the fact that Spira looked at his arm when the Helm started bonding with him...just what does that mark mean?  What does that make Spira?  More than human, certainly, but why?  And what do the three Lunar Legendaries have to do with what's happening?

Those are questions that will likely go unanswered for now, but Nathan can't help but wonder...

----------------------------------

Right now, though, Nathan has to prepare what will likely be one of the most important and impactful encounters in his life.

Deoxys is in Trillium.

So are his mom, Keni, Uncle Oscar, and so many trainers who had taken shelter from the destruction and chaos Deoxys brought with it.

The heavy League presence won't be enough to protect them all if Deoxys decides to do something adverse to the town's wellbeing.

Nathan and his pokemon can't afford to fail here.  They won't.  They'll need to put all the effort they can into pulling this off.

Nathan carefully takes the Will Point Orchid out of his bag and twists the stem, gives it a good whiff, then hands it to Princess as well, regaining 1 Will Point.  After expending so much energy and willpower to summon those Combee, Arceus knows they need to take a breather.

In addition, Grid is Revived (with the Revive I said Nathan was using in the final Round against the Deoxys Clones) and fully healed (with the honey from the Combee since he would have been conscious at that point).

Nathan teaches Charizard how to use Thunder Punch with the newly acquired TM!  Though Charizard never really needed an Electric or Grass type move to deal with Water types before, Nathan's sure that he can appreciate a move that will let him deal with them even more easily. The TM for Outrage will be saved for later, though.

And finally, Nathan swaps Calam's Black Glasses for the Absolite.  It's time to fulfill another one of the promises he'd made...

And with those preparations finished, Nathan hops on Charizard, just about ready to FLY to Trillium ASAP.  "...this is it.  The final confrontation.  How it will end, I don't know...all we can do is have faith that it will end well, and do our best to bring about such a conclusion..."

Nathan looks around the area before taking off, though, trying to see if he can spot Mesprit.  Mesprit's done so much to help them already, even without being directly involved in the battle itself.  He hopes the Being of Emotion will help them with this encounter as well.

(OOC Question: if I wanted to summon the Combee swarm again in Trillium, would I have to spend another 5 Will Points?)

[Iron]

If you go to Trillium right now, the Combee swarm will follow as fast as it can. It'll take a few minutes because those individuals can't FLY.

If you wanted to battle Deoxys right away you'd have to spend another 5 Will Points to summon a swarm made up of Trillium native bees.

[Mikaruge108]

Alright, Sheer Cold is taught to Froslass!
--
Spira is still reeling from the vision, and when he's asked how he's doing, he puts his hand to his head, and says "I'll be fine, that... was not pleasant."
--
On Trillium: Spira decides to head to Trillium as well, "Let's finish this!"

[Iron]

.

And with those preparations finished, Nathan hops on Charizard, just about ready to FLY to Trillium ASAP.  "...this is it.  The final confrontation.  How it will end, I don't know...all we can do is have faith that it will end well, and do our best to bring about such a conclusion..."

Nathan looks around the area before taking off, though, trying to see if he can spot Mesprit.  Mesprit's done so much to help them already, even without being directly involved in the battle itself.  He hopes the Being of Emotion will help them with this encounter as well.

(OOC Question: if I wanted to summon the Combee swarm again in Trillium, would I have to spend another 5 Will Points?)

No sign of Mesprit currently.

[Iron]

You arrive high above Trillium Town to find disaster already waiting. The roof of every single building in town has been peeled back like a dollhouse, revealing the house's contents to the world. Humans still cower in many of the buildings. Others have rushed to hide behind a big cloud of dust, which dissipates in the arrival of your FLY.

Mt Molten sparkles as if the sky snowed crystal. Each shimmer in the air, creating its own tiny mirage, is a little Deyo flower twinkling bravely amid the fire-resistant Tall Grass.

You see Corporal Wake bravely directing refugees and fighters, flitting everywhere at once on the back of a flying Dragonair. His face is grim, but his charisma and leadership shines through, and no one questions his orders.

The source of the dust cloud is a single man standing all alone, a bandanna wrapped around his head to keep back the dust. He stands very still, and you can see bestial forms racing around him, six of them at once, none nearly so large or so fast as the Eon Duo. He shepherds a gigantic Deoxys, split into so many arms it can hardly move. It has a massive crown of rainbow spikes on its head, indicating its Attack Forme. They seem to be in a stalemate.

The rest of the League is here, as promised. Shieldmaidens are taking turns tanking a hit from the four Attack Forme Deoxys who fly about, laying waste to anyone who leaves their dollhouse. As one Shieldmaiden receives a psychic strike, she falls back and lets another take her place. Healing supplies already seem dangerously low. They're assisted by a young woman with dark blue hair mounted on a very strong Drapion, who carries crates everywhere and looks like it already took a hit to half HP. Nathan's seen that Drapion on televised E4 battles.

Two Druddigon assist the Drapion. There's another Flygon besides Genie, attempting to trap individual Deoxys tentacles in Fissures before they can regenerate. A Tyrantrum stomps wildly about Trillium Town, on quite the rampage. Occasionally it will take a hit, fall to dust, and rise from a Fossil as a Tyrunt that ages before your eyes, only to start the whole process over again.

The Mist Lord hasn't arrived yet.

There are two Charizard FLYing in the air near you, and charred remains everywhere indicate that some Deoxys clones have already been defeated and disposed of. The fires of Mt Molten suddenly rise into reaching hands as if on some command, soaring up and crashing down in the wake of something speeding down the mountain. It's a Speed Deoxys, emerged from a chasm in the upper side of Mt. Molten. It brings...something...to its master and disappears in a blur of speed. Almost instantly the slashing arms pick up the power and speed of their assault, each swipe cutting clean through earth and stone even when trapped by a Fissure. Still the man in the full-face bandanna keeps all six of his Pokemon in action.

Shiva senses a little tiredness in him, but no magic akin to the Artifacts. No Legendaries trip your senses in this scene, either. He's just standing, alone, against the meteor-borne Deoxys. There's a little relief to him when he senses you arrive. (He doesn't look up when you arrive, but seems to know all the same).

[Iron]

That subsonic noise rings out in all direction, swaying the Tall Grass. A voice speaks in your mind. It sounds like the low grating of rust on rust.

"Wrraaaëëërrr. Wrraaaëëërrr. The Bearers have come. Cowardly, traphappy experiments. Welcome my arrival with weapons designed to kill the hands that feed. Learned much information from your mind, Terra. Will conduct another experiment. Choice is yours."

MSC crystals float forward from all directions. Each rotates 90 degrees, and the light around them coalesce into the forms of people you know. Riff and Raff. The grocer, the Pokemart clerk, a Nurse Joy. Professor Mallorn.

Martha Warren.

They rotate another 90 degrees, all at the same time, feeling some inner rhythm. With every rotation, the subsonic noise whirs. Fur creeps slowly over the features of those trapped within the crystals with each rotation.

"MARTHA!!! No!!! Nathan, Deoxys is turning those people into Pokemon! This is an experiment like the Kadabra Chambers! We strike for the heart, NOW, all of you. Nathan Shiva Terra Heart Spira. We can waste no time." He rushes forward on Skarmory, then falls as he swaps Skarmory for Luxray, who catches them both in a Magnet Rise just inches above the ground and skims along it.

"Not so rash, grovelers." The great spiked head nods. "Have heard of this concept. Trade. Knew you Bearers valued what was in Trillium. Found loved ones. Found start of adventure here. Found knowledge of small experimenter who calls himself Mallorn."

The crystals float forward a bit, then are jerked back.

"Must give me room for experiments. Choose area and I will stay within. Six large towns and four small. Must be adjacent. Give me these and I will trade loved ones and rest of landmass. Two experiments. Control. Test. Benefits both of us, though not exactly original plan. Well? Wrraaaëëërrr"

[Dragonstrike]

Nathan's heart drops when he sees the destruction Deoxys wrought on Trillium in such a short time.  The roofing peeled back...it's almost like Deoxys was looking for something in those houses...

...which only serves to further support Nathan's bad feeling about Deoxys's bargain...

...and even the highest ranking members of the League themselves are fighting Deoxys now...and struggling to just survive against its onslaught...

...they need to act.

And they need to act now.

-------------------------------------------------------

Nathan steadily tightens his grip on the hilt of the Sword as Deoxys proposes its 'bargain'.

"...this is not a trade, Deoxys.  A trade would suggest that both parties involved agreed to barter in the first place.  What you've done is taken hostages and issued demands.  You've destroyed countless people and pokemon's homes, and even their very lives, to conduct your experiments.  Sure, your meddling has shaped much of what Creshire became to this day, but it's cost everyone who lives here so, so much.   Friends, family, life, love, safety...you destroy just as much as you create from what I've seen.  I would hardly call that benevolent, nor would I say that everything you left behind brought a positive change to the region."

Nathan's visibly tense as he holds himself back for now.  He has exactly one question for the alien Legendary:

"...why?  Why conduct your experiments here?  Why destroy so many lives without apparently thinking about the immediate and long term consequences of such actions beyond those of your own goals?  Why pursue your goals so single minded?  Nobody on this planet understands anything about your actions, so can you really blame those who came before us for preparing for your inevitable return?  If you're going to attempt to strike a deal that'll have far reaching consequences, you need to make those reasons known."

You could say that curiosity is getting the better of Nathan, but if he can get Deoxys talking...well, understanding is the first step of any negotiation.

Plus, this could easily stall for some time if it works, give people in the area time to flee what might soon become a battleground and time for backup to arrive if necessary.

[Iron]

It doesn't work. Deoxys is too alien.

"Must be a blind experiment. Won't share motives. Don't care about human traditions, but was willing to try one out as experiment. Brought near to Earth as part of an ancient cycle, far beyond my control. Seeds Earth with life every thousand revolutions. Source of all diversity on otherwise barren rock. Accept trade?"