A distortion: perhaps the violation of some immutable law of the land, or the ire of the force of unnature they had fled from.[break][break]

They warp into an expanse of dark, desolate desert. The only thing that guides them now is the blue backlight of energy sources against the horizon and the whimsy of stars in the night sky—to be seen clearly for the first time.[break][break]

Yujin is already scrolling through her PDA with a stylus.[break][break]

“What a conundrum,” she says with a grin for some reason. “We’re several kilometers off base. Used to be over there.” She points with the stylus like a magic wand. Needless to say the portal they had used was also in the same direction, along with the faint whiff of burning plastic in the desert breeze.[break][break]

“You have a steed, yes?” He was knightly. She’d shoot her own foot before believing he didn’t have at least some type of equestrian pokemon on hand. “I’ve got a few fliers for the distance, though I wonder about any lightning.”

She raises her eyebrows.[break][break]

“And I thought you were too good to show off~”[break][break]

The klefki is swapped out for a noivern and together they ascend to a low altitude so as to not tempt the inclinations of the Ultra Plant. [break][break]

Yujin ushers them in the direction of what she believes is another portal, but strong winds and whipping sands fight them across the dunes and crags.[break][break]

It is when her noivern’s fur begins to prickle with static does she have the creature dip down and glide close to Gwyar and his dark horse.[break][break]

“Unfortunately, the storm is following us.” A glance is thrown at its yellow-electric center, raised and riding over from their original location. “Contact in sixteen minutes.”

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig [break]

“A very clingy friend,” she tuts. “Yes, there’s a long ravine coming up; many places to hide, but bad if we get cornered. Well… we could try an ambush too.”[break][break]

In the worst case they would likely have to repeat the teleport—and who knows where they would reappear next.[break][break]

With little choice other than to keep moving in the opposite direction of the storm, they soon arrive at the top of the ravine. Strange little trails zigzag down the cliff faces, dark igneous rock against the occasional flash of lightning in the sky.[break][break]

Her noivern walks up to the edge and emits a wave of sound into the depths, listening for the return.[break][break]

“My, my. Seven minutes left.” She smiles. Such accuracy continues to be a mystery.

16 search for suitable locations to set up camp/base.

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig [break]

“As you say.” His bulwark-shaped resolve stands high and casts her low, purring shadow. Yujin and her mount need only lean over the edge to follow.[break][break]

Numerous rocky outcroppings threaten to meet them, but more than that, the darkness had been hiding a stranger truth: this was not a ravine but a canyon—a canyon city, webbed with flat bridges that lead to countless vaulted passageways built for something far larger than man.[break][break]

She lands by one of the entrances into the cliffside and brings out her excadrill. “Hide yourself,” she says, before it burrows into the nearby walls to the horror of archeologists everywhere.[break][break]

"Anything I should know about how you fight, Mr. Wledig?"[break][break]

Because the storm would bear down on them soon after in a boom of rain and thunder, with yellow fingers arcing down from the heavens only to bolt through the city’s earthbound veins in search of them.[break][break]

20 encounter and survive an electrical storm, a far more dangerous version of a lightning storm that involves even more electricity.

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig [break]

The collapse of bridges and buildings from the Regieleki’s descent triggers all the rest.[break][break]

“Go!”[break][break]

Yujin’s noivern—now separated from its owner—drops from a rooftop and lights up the torrential night with its own purplish streaks of energy: DRAGON PULSEs.[break][break]

But the shard would retaliate. Lightning bombards every surface like the explosion of a miniature sun. Even against the earthly city, the sheer strength of it blasts holes through walls and throws up mounds of volcanic clay.[break][break]

Yujin, backed behind some cover, finally finds more uses for her sunglasses. And if Gwyar needs one, she’d wordlessly offer from her infinite supply.[break][break]

Then comes the excadrill, bursting from the earth under one of the titan’s arms in a furious DRILL RUN.

13 engage a massive shard of a regieleki that had its original form displaced here by an unknown force.

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig [break]

“Quite.”[break][break]

They are treated to a shadow puppet performance: hazy outlines of figures dipping in and out of the mist, flashes of variegated light.[break][break]

Yujin is normally trigger-happy, but similarly, she hasn’t reached the level of shooting lightning.[break][break]

“You can keep the sunglasses, by the way. Blue looks good on you. Also, they work at night. And they do a few other things.” Sadly they don’t work in fairy mist, but he could figure the rest out on his own.[break][break]

They can see another attack coming, blowing apart their cover by pure happenstance. Yujin pulls Gwyar to the side to reorient, only to step on something tough and nearly twist her ankle in the process.[break][break]

“Is this… is this a cable?”[break][break]

Another flash of the fight confirms that it is indeed a cable, similar to the ones they’d seen near the active parts of the Ultra Plant.

24 encounter a crashed spacecraft that has been overwhelmed by xurkitree wiring; inside, thick black cords obscure rooms, stairs, and more.

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig [break]

So engrossed is she, she doesn't even notice when the regieleki zips back up into the heavens with a final golden flash upon their surroundings. She is too busy exploring the new passageway, and as her weary pokemon return to her side she only waves them to the side so as to contain their shadows upon the walls.[break][break]

"...A building?"[break][break]

Yes, one would think so, considering the canyon city had them in excess. But what use would a clay metropolis have for electricity?[break][break]

Yujin jogs ahead with a heart drowned in suspicion. When she reaches the first chamber the whole structure groans, but not in the way that the power plant did when the shard was released. A winding humming builds all around them as teal lights glow from the ceiling one after the other, illuminating the surroundings.[break][break]

Dashboards rattling off esoteric measurements. Spherical doors opening in the walls. And in the center of the chamber a three dimensional image appears, blinking blue and red in various areas as it visualizes the damage to its slumbering structure.[break][break]

"Ara ara...[break]
It looks more like a plane, Mr. Wledig.[break]
Or perhaps... a spaceship."

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig [break]