“I trust a master of the earth.”[break][break]

Yujin wore a sleek headlamp, one era removed from the mining devices of old. Where the beldum’s light departed, she turned to examine the crystal in more detail.[break][break]

By now she had seen a few of Derek’s creature arsenal. He had good taste, though she still didn’t know why an aficionado of steel had a sobble as his primary companion.[break][break]

“And, let’s see here…”[break][break]

Her finger slid wide across the screen of her personal digital assistant.[break][break]

“All these tera crystals were catalyzed from the meteoroid that Hoenn diverted into... the alternate universe... uh, Sea Hoenn...?”

[attr="class","icon"]

"Yeah. Though I wouldn't know if it actually made it there." He hadn't seen his Sea Doppleganger since the first time they met, which kept up with the appearance that their mission was successful. But the League's current track record, and the fact things were still developing in a dangerous direction...
[break][break]

"Guess it would seem so. But I don't trust what I don't know for myself." Life in Hoenn had taught him that much. It's why he was so adamant on pursuing Registeel. The proposed idea that it had gone dormant again? This idea that they were safe. "It all just spells more bullshit for us to deal with in the end." Making his commitment to the region all the more damning. But hey, who wanted to die of old age anyway?!
[break][break]

"Why? You know anything about it?" Judging by her just-got-into-town vibe the first time they met, he doubted it.
[break][break]

“No, love.” She put down the PDA so she could look him seriously in the eye. “What I’m trying to say is, it all sounds made up.”[break][break]

The fact that he accepted such nonsensical words construed in that order would have been unthinkable literally anywhere else. Hoenn things, apparently.[break][break]

“What do you know for yourself, then?” She wouldn’t spare a chance to learn more about the region, even after Callan had briefed—’briefed’—her on the overarching threads.[break][break]

A sudden door of chromatic crystal revealed itself in the beldum’s light. The cave continued, but a thin breeze could be felt along the edges of the shining mass, as if it had grown like a tumor where a side passage once had been.

[attr="class","icon"]

"You've gotta start thinking outside your toolbox, love." As the ranger turns to look back at her, he saw Yujin staring at him like someone feeling as though they deserved some kind of explanation. As if the news and other broadcasts by the League weren't enough. "Sea Hoenn is one of many alternates universes we've come to know."
[break][break]

Moving through the narrow passage, Derek recalls his personal experience with the inhabitants of that reality. "I fought with myself—The Sea Hoenn variant of myself." They shared some similarities, but many drastic differences as well.
[break][break]

"His Jonesy was fully evolved." She should remember who that was, right? "Pretty sure he wore a sygna suit well before we discovered the technology to make them here. Or maybe he was an avatar.... I dunno. I passed out after he decked me in the face, concussion and all. So it's hard to remember." The breach between their dimensions is likely what sparked the inovations to take place.
[break][break]

"We learned that our universe was going to be destroyed by the meteor. Stopping it meant dooming the others in a domino effect. Hence why we find ourselves at odds with Sea Hoenn." Though perhaps there was more to it as well. Generic animosities were practically tradition in this place.
[break][break]

"There's an organization called the DRK Triad. They're not really on our side, but one or more of them have helped us... I'm not sure why." He didn't know what their true goal was. Or which one was their leader. Just that there seemed to be some truant tendencies among their ranks, and it had benefitted them greatly.
[break][break]

"Might have some of it wrong, but basically every time they get involved, Hoenn faces some potentially region, or world-ending calamity that they already know about." And they seemed to have a good idea what happened if they went off-script, disrupting the canon event. "Though one time they told us we'd have to sacrifice ourselves. I offered myself up and...ta-da! Not dead." Yet, he wasn't dead yet.
[break][break]

"That patch things up, or d'you want more?"
[break][break]

She frowned at him. “Are you making fun of the way I talk? That’s not nice, darling.”[break][break]

But the rest of the conversation required more attention than mere banter. Yujin dutifully took notes as they walked, the blue of her handheld screen glowing like its own little gem in the dark.[break][break]

“...What’s it like meeting yourself?” That was a fantasy normally constrained to dreams and books of fiction. “If I met another Yujin, I think… one of us would end up dead.”
Call it a woman’s intuition. [break][break]

Eventually they reached another tera crystal deposit. It was intact and unmined, another heart to all the scintillating veins that stretched throughout the Granite Cave.[break][break]

Yujin tossed out a pokemon. Her excadrill landed on its feet, took one look at the crystal, and grunted in understanding.[break][break]

"That patch things up, or d'you want more?"[break][break]

“You did good. You have a nice voice, too.”[break][break]

She directed her sentient tunneling protocol.[break][break]

“You know, I didn’t expect you to be heroic.” This was going to insult him, but so be it. “You talk like you’re tired of other people and their opinions. So why would you sacrifice yourself?”

[attr="class","bottom"]DEREK HOFFMAN [break]

[attr="class","icon"]

"Oh, yeah. One of you'd probably end up dying." Hostilities between the two Hoenns were high, and some had the desire to find out which one was the superior version of themselves. At the very least, one of them would get hurt. "I only managed because Matias was there. And yes I do mean the Silph." Hopefully she knew that name by now, even if in the slightest capacity.
[break][break]

While Yujin tends to her own deposit, the ranger finds another to work on. "...Voice?" That's the first time someone's said anything like that to him. And then the part about being heroic. He chuckles at the thought.
[break][break]

"Well, things were a little different then." They'd managed to thwart rocket once or twice, but they just kept on pushing—testing the league on different sides. Statistically speaking, the league had to lose eventually...right? "Or I was, anyway." But that optimism has withered away as the cost of their blunders began mounding.
[break][break]

"What I am really tired of is losing." People. Pokemon. Properties. Possessions. So much was going on, and even Derek wasn't sure which way forward was right for him.
[break][break]

"...Have I told you anything about Registeel?"
[break][break]