Gavin's eyes are closed, head tipped back as smoke curls around him like a shroud. Ashes from the cherry of his cigarette scatter across the metal floor. At Marcel's humour, Gavin lets out a dry chuckle. His eyes flutter open and he taps the cigarette against an ashtray on the desk.

"Didn't get much time to think," he admits. "Saw Kat jump into a goddamn wormhole and someone chase after her and I just—" He flicks his wrist, as if to simulate the lack of planning behind the decision. "Turns out it was fucking Lucas Lane, so there's that."

He's been sour about the whole thing since it happened. His decision to protect Katherine Fairburne wasn't the issue; it was the potential fallout that worried him. Between Blacephalon and the aggressive Dusknoir attacking the scientist on video...

"Walsh was glad she got out safe, at least." He sighs. "Silver lining."

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marcel maeda

Though his laughter is strained, it rings genuine at the thought of his former colleagues. "I'll bet. I'd have been the same if it were someone else. You'd have given the report to me, though." His canines flash in a grin that's quick to fade.

With the phone placed on the desk, his expression turns serious.

"Well, first off, it was — different than I expected." His nose scrunches as if remembering something unpleasant. "Everything was spinning, couldn't tell what way was up. It almost looked like it was... I don't know, glitching?" With no reference to how wormholes had worked before the war, he can draw no accurate comparison. For all Gavin knew, they'd always worked that way. "There were these... flashes, I guess, of... this might sound mental, but it was like seeing visions of the past? I don't know if they were real or not."

He describes them for the record: Mauville, but from the distant past, before it had been reconstructed into a modern complex. A man with Articuno, potentially an avatar. A colony in space.

"And Giratina." He breathes the name like it's blasphemous. "You heard of it?"

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marcel maeda

With the warm memory of their banter quickly fading, Gavin reflects upon the chill of the wormhole with dread. "Yeah, well, I hadn't until Kat called out to it — she wanted to speak to the bloody thing, imagine that! It attacked us, though, so we got the fuck out of there. Then Lane attacked us."

Though nervous about the fact that the scientist had whipped out his phone, Gavin is reassured by the fact that he, at least, had not fought back. He couldn't say the same for Katherine.

"Oh, the attack it used, it was some kind of ice move," he adds.

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marcel maeda

Gavin's brow furrows as he pictures the whirling vortex. It had been an absolute mess, but...

"There were openings, other wormholes I'm pretty sure. Three of them, none of them the one we came through. That closed as soon as I got in." He tries to remember which one they'd taken, but he'd been too disoriented to make it out. He supposed it didn't matter now. "Lane went for one of them, Katherine and I followed."

He remembers being spat out unceremoniously into the basement of the powerplant, covered in chunks of ice, and shudders.

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marcel maeda

"Yeah," Gavin confirms. "We ended up in the basement of the Power Plant."

He's been so engrossed in his memories that the cigarette poised between his fingers has all but burned away. He stubs it out and lights another, taking a long drag as an excuse to compose his thoughts.

"That big mess of wires and cables?" he guesses. "It was plugged into the plant; kyle lopez and I took care of that. Thing was dead by the time I got out. Did you see Giratina? It burst out of the plant covered in some kind of sludge, scared me half to death. I hear it flew over the Road before disappearing, but I didn't see that bit."

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marcel maeda

He'd tried not to think too hard about it, as if his very thoughts could influence reality. With Marcel's question, Gavin grimaces.

"I think it does, yeah. No idea where."

Lugia had hidden itself away as the Nihilego poisons had eroded its will; what if Giratina had similarly sequestered itself? He thinks of the sludge coating the legendary creature and shivers at the thought.

"I don't know how it got out... it seemed like it was trapped, when we were in space. Like there was something holding it back."

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marcel maeda

Gavin shakes his head, frowning. Something troubles him.

"That's the thing, we didn't touch... whatever was holding it back." He thinks again about a bug Pokemon battering itself against a window pane. It had even resembled a bug in some ways. "We went out a different way than we came in, and it came out from below us."

He agrees with the unspoken notion that the wormhole had been a foolish decision, but feels justified in his choice to follow.

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marcel maeda