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It seemed only yesterday that she and Zev Harcourt had been discussing the prospect of finding the elusive, highly dangerous entity known as Necrozma. Now, here the man was, a newly made host for at least a portion of its power. What that even meant was a mystery to Nomi. A mystery she hoped to solve by running a thorough series of tests on the Rocket Beast.[break][break]
She might have been irritated he'd left her hanging for a week, if not for the fact that she, too, had been incredibly busy. When he finally entered her office, she was finishing up a detailed report on everything the MAGMA division had been able to learn about Paradox Pokemon since the acquisition of the Seal Stone. It was extensive, to say the least.[break][break]
"I do," she answered, sliding her chair back and rising from the desk where she'd been working. An Unown-N floated down from the ceiling and circled around Smoke as if in silent greeting. She could tell that its demeanor was friendly, even though its singular eye barely changed expression. She was getting better and better at reading the subtle nuances in how they operated.[break][break]
Perhaps a different person might be more cautious around this man who'd been blessed by a living void of mass destruction, but Nomi merely approached him with an eager curiosity. On the surface, he appeared wholly unchanged. He looked the same, sounded the same, moved the same. Not quite an Avatar, but no longer just human.[break][break]
"But first, I want to know what happened. I read the report, of course, but it was only a summarized list of neutral facts, from an observer's point of view." She paused. "I want to know how it felt, Zev. What you experienced, in your own words."

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Zev's eyes followed the Unown-N as it circled him. The creature did not appear antagonistic, and he assumed it was merely expressing curiosity about his new condition. That the Psychic-type might have been drawn to the hidden Gengar did not occur to him.[break][break]

Nomi approached, making her demands.[break][break]

How he had felt, and the nature of his experience, were private matters. Zev's first nature was to lie or deflect. But he realized, begrudgingly, that the accuracy of the tests might rely on him telling the truth.[break][break]

So he shrugged, feigning indifference. "It's hard to describe. bryan delarosa succeeded in removing the crystals from Choi's body, and those crystals swarmed me to enter mine through my skin. There was some pain and a brief hunger, but that went away immediately."[break][break]

It was a succinct summary that left out all of the nuanced details.

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Hunger? That was curious.[break][break]
Nomi furrowed her brow. She moved closer, trying to get a better look at his exposed skin.[break][break]
"Can you feel them?" She asked softly, fascinated. "The crystals inside of your body? Do they...react to anything?"[break][break]
It was a good first test. She motioned for Nu, and the Unown-N was at her side in an instant.[break][break]
"Many Pokémon have abilities that do not manifest until they are in the heat of battle and are forced to defend themselves. Still, others are affected by weather or terrain. Perhaps you have had a chance to experiment on your own...?"[break][break]
The head scientist smiled. Though she was young, and had an innocent demeanor about her, she was no stranger to using pain as a means of extracting valuable data from her test subjects.[break][break]
"Attack him," she ordered the Unown-N, so casually one might mistake it for just another of her keen observations rather than a command.[break][break]
The Unown-N began to glow a soft orange, then unleashed a small burst of HIDDEN POWER at Zev. At such close proximity, Zev would only have seconds to dodge - if that was what he chose to do.[break][break]
Either way, Nomi did not fear for the man's wellbeing. She knew who she was dealing with.

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Zev shook his head. "I can't feel them," he said in response to Nomi's first question. To her second, he answered, "They react automatically to fatal damage, but nothing less."[break][break]

He recalled the way the crystals formed in response to an Iron Valiant's killing blow, but did nothing to stop him from banging his head against a brick wall.[break][break]

"I have done some testing since I first realized what they could do," Zev said, raising a hand, preparing to show Nomi.[break][break]

But then she ordered her Unown to attack him.[break][break]

The HIDDEN POWER dissipated harmlessly off his arm, a layer of black crystal covering his entire arm from the elbow down to his fingertips. Each finger ended in a wicked claw.[break][break]

He glowered at the pink-haired woman. "Is this how you conduct all of your tests?" he demanded, his annoyance evident in the furrow of his brow. "You could have just asked."

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Jagged black crystals erupted from Zev's skin so quickly Nomi barely saw it happen. In the time it had taken her to blink, they'd covered his entire arm, transforming his fingers into deadly, clawed points. They were beautiful in a terrible way, their inky color reminiscent of a void. The HIDDEN POWER had been effortlessly dispersed as if it had been nothing more than a puff of harmless air.[break][break]
Nomi's eyes lit up and she clapped her hands together in delight.[break][break]
"Incredible," she breathed. His sullen demeanor did not deter her.[break][break]
"Of course I could have asked," she replied dismissively. "But I wanted to test more than just the reactivity of your new armor." She moved closer, holding out her hand as if to touch his arm but waiting until he consented.[break][break]
"Necrozma is perhaps the most violent Pokémon known to man," Nomi explained matter-of-factly. "I wanted to know if you would immediately try to kill me in a maddening frenzy me if I triggered its power unexpectedly. Now that we know that you are more in control than it, we can proceed with additional testing you may not have tried yet without me needing to fear for my life."[break][break]
For the most part, anyway. Zev Harcourt the man was still plenty dangerous.

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"Of course I'm in control," Zev scoffed, his stubborn insistence characteristic of a man who could not believe in any other possibility.[break][break]

First Cillian Quinn, then bryan delarosa, and now Naomi Sato were under the impression Necrozma's influence would drive Zev to do irrational things. Perhaps that had been the case with Chu-e, but the former Rocket had been sick. Dying, as Cillian put it. Zev, meanwhile, continued to show only his strength.[break][break]

He did relent to Nomi's silent appeal, lowering his arm so she could examine it more closely. "I can cover my whole body with the scales. When raised, I don't take any injuries, but the force of attacks still affects me."[break][break]

It was a less self-deprecating way of saying he could still get tossed around by people and Pokémon stronger than him.[break][break]

"I still tire, and I don't have any advanced healing like Delarosa does."

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Nomi took his arms in gentle hands. She ran her fingertips over the black crystals, feeling that they were, indeed, razor sharp.[break][break]
"May I chip one?" She asked curiously. "Will it hurt you? I'd love to look at a sliver under a microscope, then test its chemical makeup."[break][break]
As she gazed at Zev's new armor, a memory itched at the back of her mind. Where had she seen crystals like this before? In research about Necrozma, surely, but there was something else, something far more fresh...more vivid...[break][break]
"Oh," she breathed, eyes widening. "Zev, don't these look a bit like the defunct Z-Crystals we brought back from Lesser Megalopolis?"[break][break]
The newest discovered rift had been a haunting realm of darkness and the undead. Nomi and Zev had been two of the first Rockets to explore it. Though Nomi's dissection of the reanimated dead Megalopolian they'd recovered had yet to produce any significant results, this was an entirely new discovery that made Nomi's mind race with possibilities.

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Zev shook his head. "You can't. They're impervious to damage. Your tools would break before they remove a piece."[break][break]

He remembered the way the steel blade of the combat knife had snapped clean in half, and how the bones of bryan delarosa's hand had shattered.[break][break]

The memory of the dead crystals scattered across the streets of Lesser Megalopolis was still fresh in Zev's memory. They did indeed look like defunct Z-crystals, the small shards losing their color to become pitch black after use.[break][break]

"You're right, they do," he conceded with a frown. "What does that mean, though?"

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What did it mean?[break][break]
"Well," she considered. "It could mean that Z-Crystals are, in fact, discarded fragments of Necrozma's body."[break][break]
But if Zev's crystals were impervious to damage - so much so that she would not be able to collect one for testing purposes - what could have possibly injured Necrozma itself enough for it to lose some of its armor? And not just one piece, but many?[break][break]
A shiver traveled down her spine at the thought of something that powerful existing.[break][break]
"We ought to go back to Lesser Megalopolis soon." A pause, and a sigh. "We barely scratched the surface of that place," she lamented. If the undead Megalopolians had not interfered with their expedition, they likely could have found out more about the landscape.[break][break]
"In any case, I do want to record some data on your armor." She smiled somewhat apologetically. "Since we cannot remove a sample from your arm, I must ask for you to sit while I put one of your fingers under a microscope. I want to compare the chemical makeup of your crystals to those defunct Z-Crystals."[break][break]
She pointed at a chair next to the worktable. A rather intricate microscope sat, at the ready, awaiting use.

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Nomi's conclusion left Zev wondering the same thing: if Z-crystals came from Necrozma's body, then what had wounded the creature in the first place? The streets of Lesser Megalopolis were littered with them.[break][break]

Other questions followed the first one. How much damage had Necrozma sustained over time? Had it fled, healed, and returned, only to become injured once more?[break][break]

"I mean to go back soon," Zev said. Only there would he find the answers to a seemingly unending list of questions. He was sure of this.[break][break]

He sat down in a chair next to Nomi's microscope. An intricate device, he did not know where to place his finger until she showed him. Zev held his hand steady, the first inkling of restlessness causing his leg to bounce with impatience.

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Nomi scribbled notes into a small journal as she observed the chemical makeup of Zev's newly acquired armor. She was familiar with some of the compounds, but others were as strange and alien as the creature his crystals had come from. She bit her lip in concentration as she connected dots and jotted down theories.[break][break]
"What else can you do?" She asked him as she worked. She could sense Zev's impatience: best to keep him talking to pass the time. "Avatars tend to have more than one ability, though perhaps yours is a unique case, given that the..." she paused. "...bonding does not appear to be complete."[break][break]
Hopefully, SPECTRA's ongoing investigations would be able to uncover the secrets behind the Avatar transformation process.

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Zev had a hunch he could do more than cover himself in crystals, especially after Cillian Quinn called Necrozma "the Devourer of Light." But he had not had an opportunity to test that further.[break][break]

And until then, he was not inclined to reveal what he knew, even to the Head Scientist. So he shrugged a shoulder. "That remains to be seen."[break][break]

He shifted in his chair, his restlessness increasing the longer he had to hold his hand still for Nomi's data collection.[break][break]

"In any case, it's too early to label me as an Avatar. Choi's powers were transferred to me — that much we can say for certain. But Necrozma is still out there."[break][break]

But if there was a chance to become an Avatar, especially if he could gain more abilities like his armor, he would seize it. He would face Necrozma and convince it to side with him.

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Nomi frowned. It was a pity that Zev had not discovered any other abilities just yet, but she cautioned herself against impatience. More would be revealed in time. She had a nagging feeling that it would happen sooner rather than later, as if she could sense Necrozma's presence somewhere just out of reach, a shadow looming over Rocket, heralding the coming of a storm.[break][break]
"It will return," she murmured, confident. "It will come to Hoenn."[break][break]
This was the origin point, after all. Holo had been convinced that the Avatar phenomenon was a symptom of Hoenn's catalytic nature, one of many reasons why they were all in danger of experiencing a multi-realm apocalypse beyond imagining. Nomi had begun to wonder, however, if that had less to do with triggering the apocalypse itself and more to do with countering it.[break][break]
The Gods were choosing champions.[break][break]
And who better for Necrozma than Zev?[break][break]
Nomi let go of his arm, pulled away from her microscope. She set down her pen, a resigned expression on her face.[break][break]
"This will have to do. I won't keep you any longer from your duties. I'll run some additional tests against this data and see what else I can learn." She smiled at him. "I appreciate your cooperation. Please inform me of any new abilities you happen to uncover."[break][break]
She might have cautioned anyone else to be careful, given the nature of Necrozma's violent hunger. But Zev was not the sort of man who needed reminders to be vigilant. Nor, did she suspect, was he in any real danger.[break][break]
It was Rocket that ought to be careful.[break][break]
Zev was their ally. For now.

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