Kepler couldn’t help but giggle at Isaac’s wonderfully self-deprecating humor, though he tried to hide it behind the heel of his hand.

“Can’t do it either, huh?” he asked, referring to the beard thing. Kepler was lucky he had leg hair. The testosterone was not strong with this one.

But like most of his past experiences with anything close to friendship, he soon found himself alone, palm over his mouth and fingers curled up towards his cheek, frowning at the floor. He wondered if he should maybe excuse himself and let the other boys enjoy their meal in peace.

He can hear them talking in the kitchen and is really trying his best not to eavesdrop (read: not trying at all, actually) and he hears his name and soon after the word cute and it literally takes every under-developed muscle fiber in his body to not jump up and bolt because, wow. His face turns red and he more properly hides it in his hands, willing the rosacea to go away before they come back.

“Do… do you guys need help?” he half-asks, half-chokes, dropping his hands to turn a little on the couch. “Carrying stuff, I mean?”

Isaac Merlo Ashley Shepard

☉

[attr="class","top"]

He’d hoped, probably impossibly, that having an answer for all the weird noises and strange happenings would calm her down. Not through any deep-rooted sense of companionship or care of her wellbeing: she was a big, strong girl with a nail-studded bat and an apparently itchy trigger finger. He really did not want to become collateral damage.

It takes him back to long evenings spent hiding behind-- or in-- dumpsters or traschans or under parked cars waiting for his bullies to give up and go away. Fear does strange things to the mind. Rationalizing sounds calms him.

Kepler stumbled backwards when ordered so Ruby could set her Drapion to peeling the metal door open like crushing a tin can. The noise was cacaphonous in the silence and Kepler had to cover his ears.

“Nice,” he says, genuinely fond, in the deafening silence that follows.

Once Skorpios had done his job, Kep pushed into the room, peering cautiously through the doorway. But the room ahead was dark and empty. A large wall of screens most likely made up feedbacks for CCTV security, and a handful of terminals would have tracked everything else: data, logistics, energy output, bugs in the system, security.

He crossed the open floor to the closest computer terminal and powered it on. The wall of screens burst into light as, one by one, the security cameras came to life, displaying a grainy image of various locales across the lab.

One one screen, Phobos was dragging her tendrils over an abandoned shelf of glassware, undoubtedly making them chime. On another, Deimos disappeared into a centrifuge and got it spinning so hard it fell off the counter. The Misdreavous popped out with a grin.

Kepler logged into the computer with the access codes given by the mission dossier and went to work sussing out the energy logs and old CCTV backups. “They save manually whenever there’s action so if something’s been turning on the lights and systems there should be… a recent file save…” his voice trails off as he searches.

All goes silent save the clicking of the mouse and gentle hum of the TV screens.

Until a bloodcurdling shriek startles Kepler out of his chair, knocking it over in fright. "Primus on a pony!" His eyes go to the CCVT screens.

Deimos can be seen darting across the cameras, fear in her eyes, screaming loud enough for them to hear the entire way-- though just as whatever is giving chase is set to pop up on screen, the feed cuts black. Around and around and around it goes, one screen blipping off at a time.

Until finally it seems like she has nowhere to go, and her screen goes black.

"Deimos!"

Ruby Garcia
set just pre-PAAA
wearing

Kepler feels his phone buzz in his pocket. Delirious and more on instinct than anything he pulls it out.

It’s a text from Ashley Shepard. He’s alive. Relief floods through him, filling his windburnt skin with warmth.

Kepler hurriedly snaps a picture of Hoopa forcing Kyurem back into the hell from whence it came. It’s blurry, but you can definitely make out the two, massive somethings.

Busy fighting a god. Call you later, love you.

His fingers are cold and sore as he types.

The air around him echoed with Ruby Garcia’s cries and Kepler winced and turned his head.

“Sorry,” he says, in the deafening silence that follows, even as greenery and light twirls and spreads along the ground, apparently prompted by fucking Celebi.

Kepler was very, very tired. And he felt bad. Felt bad for Ruby, felt bad for himself. But he had reports to write, data to sluice through, videos to edit.

“I’m sorry.”

Flexes his cold fingers as Arbalest comes back to his side, pissed that he didn’t get more of a fight. Kepler frowns at the Poliwrath, wishing he could trade for Ruby’s Houndoom while also secretly being relieved. He had spent so much damn money on the thing.

“Let’s go home.”

Ruby Garcia

tl;dr
yet another event where i did bumfuck all. kepler texts Ashley Shepard a shitty picture of hoopa and kyurem and apologizes for not being there with him.
tells ruby his sorry
he's got work to do

True to what Theo says, Naganadel doesn’t need any means of flapping for locomotion. Likewise, it’s tail doesn’t truly act as a rudder or flap or anything that traditional fliers would need for flying.

“My theory,” Kepler said, as he made sure the beams were functioning and the data coming in was usable, “is that the lesser barrels on its thorax are a type of propulsion system. My secondary theory is the toxin its filled with is extremely light and contributes to buoyancy until mixed with atmospheric elements causing it to gel and thicken.”

Once Naganadel had finished traversing the little box, Kepler powered down the beams.

“But then again I am trying to equate our laws of physics to a creature from fucking outer-outer space. So my theories are likely bullshit. Anyway, that concludes our research for today. Thank you for your time, Administrator Beckett. And, uh, Naganadel, too.”

The data just had to compile and Kepler had some physicking to do.

THEO BECKETT
TY I SUBMITTO <3

☉

In real life, Kepler had lifted the VR visor enough to let him see where he was going so he could cross the cold metal submarine floors to the fridge in his lab. Contained within were a collection of samples clearly labeled BIOHAZARD as well as his lifetime supply of peach Bangs.

He grabbed one and popped the top.

gallowsCalibrator it’s okay. We were all new once, i guess.

His avatar steps up to the pile of loot, the teal-red of his customized pyrite armor glinting in the green glow.

gallowsCalibrator no, you clearly need it more than I do.
gallowsCalibrator you can’t use it yet but if you don’t want to hold onto it you can break it down for crafting materials.
gallowsCalibrator or you can save it to use after some grinding

He cocked his head, in real life and VR.

gallowsCalibrator do you know where the blacksmith is?

[attr="class","mintag"] john nelson
thanks for not outing me as a homestuck, doe

kepler spun around in his wheelie chair and watched the VR world rotate with him.

he hadn’t played in a million years, what with work and Apocalypse and all, but given said apocalypse was looming he’d decided to boot up the ol’ glasses one last time for old fuck’s sake. he had some time to kill anyway while his simulator compiled all the data from the naganadel study he’d done with THEO BECKETT .

he picked his strongest character and set out to go about pwning some noobs while his computers whirred behind him, aiming to be the biggest jackass on the planet in his boredom. like a cat.

unfortunately he found someone had beat him to it and was busy being too stupid to truly experience the kind of misery he wanted to inflict.

taking pity on the guy, kepler swapped his skillset to ice and grass based attacks and launched an overleveled barrage of bullshit at the monster, depleting its healthbar in two keystrokes and saving the creampuff-- er, creampunk-- from deletion.

gallowsCalibrator im helping because you made me sad

.

[attr="class","mintag"] john nelson

they’d found Ruby Garcia but she was apparently being too stubborn to let him save her life, choosing instead to wail at her garchomp in an attempt to get it to take flight. “ruby! you’re going to d-- oh, never mind. cool.”

Pluto shifted his master to his other arm and hovered close to Ruby, because there was safety in numbers and because the Beheeyem wanted to be at hand should her Garchomps flight gear give out and send her pitching downward.

there’s a deep warbling noise and suddenly hoopa is there-- but real hoopa, not the little fun version they sell plushies of at carnival games. kepler looks up at the massive creature as it balances its rings better than a circus performer.

he hopes he’s getting this all on camera. distantly he wonders where the deoxys core ends up, figuring Killian Decker probably grabbed it in the end. it didn’t so much matter because he’d planned to turn it over to the Rocket science division anyhow.

but they had more important things to worry about.

he catches the tail end of Lulu Flint getting yeeted into space connected to the weird white haired ninja lady. darkrai-- fucking darkrai has them covered, though.

Pluto and Kepler descend towards the earth, surrounded on all sides by other falling bodies and the strange universal fragmentation that has turned the Hoenn region into a Turducken of timelines. Kepler frowns at his empty hands, bitterly amazed at his survival and yet this apparent continued tradition of coming away from big events with nothing to show for it.

when is he going to figure out what this stupid region wants from him to get anywhere in life?!

as his feet touch down not far from his bodyguard and he tries not to cry from-- from everything-- when fucking kyurem appears

"primus on a pony,” kepler shouts, throwing up an arm to shield his eyes from the terribly cold whipping winds. “can’t i catch a fucking break!?”

Pluto throws up a protect around Kepler, Ruby, and Ruby’s Garchomp, cutting the wind down enough for Kepler to chuck Arbalest’s Pokeball towards the massive ice dragon.

"We who are about to die salute you!”

The Poliwrath aims a powerful Mega Kick right between that asshole’s eyes.

OrNAWIXQ

Ruby Garcia

tl;dr
doesn't get fuck all anything apparently
lands near ruby
throws out poliwrath who uses MEGA KICK on kyurem
beheeyem uses protect on kepler, ruby, and garchomp

he has killed before. once. accidentally on purpose. the guy was trying to kill him too so, you know, it counted, or something.

“sometimes i wonder if all of what i do,” he says, exhaling, "all this throwing numbers at stuff, trying to constrict things with equations and regulate it to patterns, is just… useless.”

a concession even if knowing most of it was useless, in practice, to the common man.

"like your-- cyberspace chase. what the fuck? what kind of math can i apply to that?”

phobos and deimos spook up a dragapult. the dragon makes a break for it but wasn’t fast enough to avoid
phobos wrapping around the plane-shape of its head and deimos nailing it with a hex. kepler lobbed a pokeball.

Martín del Mar
ghost/psychic
catch attempt dragapult

☉

Kepler feels like the last bird to get to the worm. All he gets is dirt.

“Knew that already, did you?” he asked, sarcastic grin on his face. He was an academic. He knew when people already knew things.

It didn’t matter. The point of this was to study the Naganadel’s weaponry system, to replicate it.

“Eyes. Targeting system, I’d imagine. Kitted out like Predator. Soooo much room for poison.”

This was fun. This discovery. He hadn’t done this in a million years.

“One last test. I’m going to shoot a concentrated beam of tiny magnetic particles at it-- it’ll feel like stepping into the line of a fan. The data’ll help generate a fluid wave module on the UB’s aerodynamics. Clue us in to how it flies.”

He queued up the commands. A cluster of green light beams zapped across the room.

“Just have them fly from one side of the box to the other through the beams, please.”

THEO BECKETT
dun dun dun?

☉

Ashley lets his head fall back. Kepler takes the chance to kiss his cheek, his jaw, his neck. He rises to meet Ash halfway, mouth and lips and tongue.

His breath comes out in a rushed, needy gasp.

“With you. I want to be with you.”

He didn’t care where that actually was as long as they were together.

Ashley Shepard

☉

Kepler’s invisible ears perk at the mention that Theo already has samples for him. “Oh.” He is both immediately relieved and disappointed. He wants to poke the bear giant poison dart dragon psuedo-god equally as much as he wants to stay away and make sure he stays alive.

“Okay.” Kepler nods to his assistants (Callisto and Coldheart) who move about the cabin (airlocked room). Coldheart produces a plate and goes behind Naganadel, suspending the thin, black square in a completely still psychic hold. Callisto holds the portable x-ray machine, lining up the thin red line that indicates the direction of the beam.

Callisto pressed a button and the machine hum-clicked a picture. Then the two pokemon rotated, taking a shot from all four sides of Naganadel.

As the pictures began to load, Kepler’s brow furrowed, and he leaned forward.

“How… strange.”

The radiographs-- while not a CT Scan or MRI-- were quite detailed. The inner workings of Naganadel’s artillery system seemed to be made up of a series of vesicles of fluid (likely toxin)-- as well as something… suspiciously active.

“Can you take one of the chest and one of the head, please?” Kepler called through the microphone. Coldheart and Callisto set up and did as they were asked.

The chest was unremarkable: Naganadel didn’t have lungs in the natural sense; no spine, either, hinting at something rather more exo-skeletal. The head had a cluster of ophthalmic function systems, but it was also lacking something very distinct.

“Holy shit.”

Kepler hummed, queuing up some more commands, twisting the radiographs this way and that.

“Naganadel’s brain… is in its lower half.”

THEO BECKETT
dun dun dun?

☉