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Rhys braced himself as he passed through the wormhole. To say he was nervous would be inaccurate, but he couldn't help thinking of his last foray here with Marianne Lovelace - they'd escaped, but only barely, and in his case not without injury.
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Still, with Jude at his side and Yumi Hasegawa along for the expedition, he was decidedly more prepared than his first, naive journey into this bleak metropolis. More mature, certainly, though not by his choosing - he couldn't remove the abiding sense of loss he felt knowing he'd essentially lived half his life again without experiencing any of it, thanks to the distortion at the Giant Chasm, but moping about it wasn't something he could entertain when headed into a den of monsters.
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As ready as he was for what to expect, he still blinked at the location the wormhole spat him out at. Instead of a complete - abandoned, worn, rugged, but complete - cityscape, the quadrant he found himself in was ruinous, buildings fallen into piles of rubble, roads and pathways sundered and cracked atop strangely hard soil beneath.
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His tentative walk turned to a sudden stop, and his Toxtricity nearly ran into his back. At the fringe of the city, instead of wilderness or even a blank, unremarkable stretch of land, the darkness of space loomed heavy, stars too close and too bright burning within its vastness.
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"Where...what the hell is this place?" he wondered aloud, agape.

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Rhys drew up behind Yumi cautiously, peering down at the corpses with - it had to be said - more interest than revulsion. "Well, they don't look like robots, that's for sure." he commented. He gave the nearest body an experimental prod with his toe, and when the shape did not immediately lurch upward to slay him for his insolence, he crouched down to examine it more closely.
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"It's not armor, I think, but the way they're dressed makes me think they weren't always like this." He reached out to tug the deteriorated shirt free of the specimen he currently examined, and it came away with scarcely any resistance at all, revealing a smooth, unblemished expanse of black metal. He poked at it experimentally, which offered no scientific insight other than the notion that it was, in fact, metal, and that metal was more or less intractable to a human finger.
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Rhys glanced up to Yumi and jerked his head to the side, indicating the nearby alleyway that loomed at the edge of the ruins. "I'm going to see if I can get a sample, would you keep an eye out with Jude for any uninvited guests?" He dug into his satchel as his Toxtricity gave an affirmative growl, moving to stand next to Yumi with an easy grin.
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Rhys withdrew a small file with a triumphant smirk, moving to the fallen being's arm and setting to work, small flakes of metal dropping away as he dug for more substantial leaves and filings. "Oh, right," he commented without looking up from his task, "They're zombies. Please advise if you see zombies. Not kidding."

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Rhys jerked at Yumi's shriek, and what should have been another methodical curl of metal from the blackened corpse turns into a grotesque squeal as the scalpel swung inexpertly over the body. "Would you hush?" Rhys hissed irritably, carefully sealing the samples and stuffing them into his satchel with a growl.
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"Yeah, and they suck," he affirmed, "And I still have no idea what happened here. Zombies was one thing, but people turning into metal sculptures? How is that even related?" He stood, throwing his hands up in exasperation with the laws of this place. "You can't have two surreal mysteries happening at once, that doesn't even make sense in books!"
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His tirade was cut short as something stirred in the alleyway, and he froze. A humanoid shape shuffled from the deepest shadows, and he reacted instinctively, ordering Jude forward with a gesture. He wasn't about to be caught on the back foot in this forsaken city again.
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The Toxtricity jogged forward, an OVERDRIVE rippling through the air as waves of electricity coursed toward the shape. It ducked the attack crazily, in a contortion few humans could have pulled off, and then its...head detached. The spherical orb launched skyward, bursting in a beautiful display of colorful fireworks.
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Gaping, Rhys tore his attention from the fireworks back to their originator, only to find that another head was inflating itself in the space above its shoulders. Prancing about, the colorful thing - was it even a pokemon? - twirled past Jude as though the lizardlike pokemon didn't even exist, and launched its head again, preceding another pop of fireworks.
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"Shit," Rhys cursed, ordering Jude to deliver a POISON JAB that the Blacephalon evaded as easily as the first attack, countering with another firework overhead. "Get it," he pled toward Yumi, "It's gonna-"
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But his warning came too late, as more shapes began to shuffle out of the nooks and crannies at the edge of the ruins, blackened and deformed Megalopolans that lurched toward Rhys, Yumi, and their pokemon with mindless singularity. Spotting these new arrivals, the Blacephalon offered a wordless, cheery wave to the nearest before bounding off on one foot, a final fireworks display its parting gift.
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Rhys whirled, taking Yumi's hand and pulling her toward a crumbling section of street that seemed the only passage not currently hosting a hostile threat. "Go, go, go, go," he chanted, the air behind them thrumming with another Overdrive as Jude attempted to cover their escape, to what sounded like no avail whatsoever.

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Rhys cursed under his breath as their escape was thwarted by a wall of metal sheeting. The Milotic's attack was effective - he could hear the plates groaning - but not enough to clear the way.
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He cast Yumi a stern look as she called his name frantically, murmuring, "Stay calm. I got someone out of here once, I can do it again, but only if you stay calm." He glanced to Jude as the Toxtricity jogged up to the barricade, then his eyes went wide as the reptilian pokemon began to strum his chest.
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"Cover your ears!" He yelped, slamming his hands over his own and ducking away from the Toxtricity. Moments later, a BOOMBURST ripped through the alleyway, visible ripples in the air caused by soundwaves that blew the barricade to shreds, hanging crazily from their anchor points at either wall. Rhys felt his teeth rattle in his jaw as the attack rebounded and surged down the way they'd come, sending the shambling ebon shapes toppling backward over each other amid discordant groans.
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Tugging at Yumi, he moved to dash through the space revealed by the destruction of the barricade, recalling Jude with his free hand and rummaging in his satchel for another pokeball. Casting his gaze around frantically, he caught sight of a small opening, another offshoot between two low-slung buildings.
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He quickly peered into the darkness, and - satisfied that there appeared to be no flesh-eating monsters this far in - slid into the small aisle, calling out his Hisuian Zoroark and biting out, "Cover us!"
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The air shimmered at the entrance to their small offshoot, and abruptly the faint outline of a continuous wall appeared over the opening - from the outside, it would appear that there was no egress whatsoever.
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He leaned against the wall and slid down, panting. "Shit, okay. Catch your breath, we just need to find the way out," he whispered.

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Rhys's breath came heavy, his lungs burning. He wasn't out of shape, but he was certainly in no state to meet the sprints that this place seemed to constantly require in any kind of graceful fashion. His quiet chuckle came out wheezing and rueful. "Heh," he grunted, glancing over to Yumi with a wry smirk, "Usually it's me asking that. No, I'm fine, just out of breath."
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He turned his attention to the illusory wall Everard had conjured, and held his breath entirely when he saw a shambling figure lumber into sight. The zombie stopped, inhaling a low, rasping breath, and canted its head to one side as though surveying the results of its search. At length, it lurched into motion once more, past the disguised entryway and further along the main alley.
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Rhys released the breath he'd been holding, coming slowly, carefully, quietly to his feet, and beckoned both Yumi and Everard further down their offshoot. "We keep back here. Everard, you make sure we're not visible from the street at any point." He reached a hand out to help Yumi up, jerking his head toward the maze of corridors ahead of them.
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"This is bound to kick out somewhere near one of those wormholes, we just have to stay quiet and keep low. We'll get out of here, not a scratch, I promise you." For as dry and cynical as the man could so often sound, this was as close to kind as he'd managed in recent months. He hoped it would do.

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