his voice was different than she remembered, but she only found it momentarily surprising. what did he actually sound like? did he actually need to talk at all?

she stared down at his haggardness, a ragdoll of teeth and withering from hunger. in a way, he reminded her of Chu-e Choi ; but his imprisonment felt closer to her own experience. 

her sympathy, however, did not come free. 

”to understand.” she stepped closer, and her voice lowered with a smile. ”to negotiate.”

first off, the motive. ”why did you come to hoenn?”

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energy. of course. it made sense, why this region in particular. in light of recent discoveries, hoenn seemed to be sitting on massive amounts of previously unknown  resources.

megalopolis was dead? a disappointment. that meant that perhaps there was nothing left to take from.

”i’m sorry to hear about your world. it was my hope that i could learn more about it.”

for whatever reason, she hadn’t expected him to smile back. she felt her confidence sway off balance, if only for a moment. 

”it’s truly a shame that such a brilliant mind is kept behind bars, withering away as the last of a species. perhaps there is something i can do.” in exchange.

”i’m curious. how is it that you did detect hoenn? was it some sort of innate sense? other worlds and dimensions are not so obvious to us here.”

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her chin turned with intrigue at the mention of genesect, but she was not willing to be derailed. she listened to him spit complaints of his treatment, unsurprised. and of the abundance of energies? ”clearly.” she’d been interested in the how. the technology, but maybe he was dodging the question. maybe the how didn’t even matter at this point.

she regarded his toothy face with a keen look and leaned closer again. ”if you cooperate with me, i promise to feed you. you’ll find i don’t mind killing a man to get the answers i want, and i care for few of my species.”

taking a step back again, she straightened.

if she was understanding correctly, the megalopolans had not been causing all of the wormholes themselves. she figured that meant either a) someone else was, intentionally or otherwise, or b) they were naturally occurring in their world and a dangerous beacon to others, who had probably already found them

perhaps these others had been using similar tech.

”one of our own came across a piece of technology similar to your shiny machine in a place we call the cave of origin. when we investigated it, we found a code including the name ‘dark triad’. recently, we  found this name again on other devices. we believe them to be related to new types of interdimensional portals occurring around hoenn.”

her chin turned again.

”would you know anything about that?”

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”hm.”

not the best answer she could have hoped for. a new, unknown threat was potentially much worse than an old one they’d warred with before. they’d lived through that.

the idea of jules cotillard’s success didn’t bring the same smile to her face. it was a revolution which caused vulnerabilities, and she still wasn’t in on it. her eyes lowered briefly to the sharp edges of his teeth, and back to his eyes.

”yes, i suppose you have.” and she would ask him for his help, when the time was right. how hungry was he?

tilting her head inquisitively, she then asked, ”do you know anything about unown?”

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”hm.”

she watched him rest his head, uselessly trying to read whatever it was behind his eyes.

”well, they’ve not been very sedentary here. actually, they’ve been opening portals to other dimensions, and are being used by an unidentified group from another world to kill our avatars.” which included her, of course, but she wasn’t going to mention that part—yet.

”when you saw the unown, did their appearance seem to mean anything? were there any other extraordinary phenomena taking place? surely there was a reason for their visit if it is such a rarity.” maybe he wasn’t proficient, but he seemed to have taken more than a glance at the multiverse’s fucked up alphabet soup.

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she gave the lightest snort. shit was in trult shambles when the captive confined in a lawless prison would opt for his cage over the open world. ”yes, well, scientist or not, sometimes i feel as though the best explanation for anything is that this region is cursed.”

that the unown were a mystery to the megalopolans as well was mildly disappointing, but the fact that they had appeared in a similar circumstance was at least intriguing. “so, the unown appear when one dimension opens up to another...” presumably. but why?

she might’ve demanded more of his time, but with the desire to gain the megalopolan scientist’s trust, she decided to leave him to his rest. ”very well.”

however, she had one last thing to say. an offer.

”if you ever find that your brilliant mind ought to get back to work again, do call for me.”

before she turned, she added, ”i appreciate your time, cotillard. i’ll send food.”

the head scientist then took her leave. that evening, a human leg would be sent to him. not her kill, but someone’s. strange perks to being at the top of the food chain—at least, in this world.

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