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How do we determine what's simulated and what's real?[break][break]
Though Xenon moved away to get a better look at their new surroundings, Nomi's brow furrowed as she weighed the other woman's question. Even if Xenon had not been expecting an answer, Nomi wanted to give it the consideration it deserved. It was a good question, and one they should all be thinking about with a careful vigilance. Lulu Flint's work with dreams, the recent development with Tera energy, the paradox Pokemon, the RKS Machine...it was all related somehow. The heralds of a new age...[break][break]
"Oh?"[break][break]
Nomi looked up, pulled out of her reverie. They were standing in a familiar tomb, the thousands of headstones making the ground look like an uneven toothy maw. Xenon was watching her expectantly, asking if she would, once again, alter reality inside of the simulation.[break][break]
"I can certainly try," she answered, nodding.[break][break]
How to cleanse this place? She surveyed the details carefully, eyes focusing on the single beam of moonlight filtering in from a hole in the ceiling. That could work.[break][break]
Beckoning to Kallistatus, Nomi envisioned the moonlight filling the entire chamber, washing over each grave with a purifying brightness. In a flash, blue crystals appeared on the walls of the cavern, glowing and pulsing. A brilliant blue-white light, gentle and healing, filled the entire space.[break][break]
The light illuminated a spiritomb as it drifted towards them. It stopped in its tracks, and seemed to shimmer within the light. Nomi strained, doing her best to exorcise whatever evils lay dormant in the tomb.
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Nomi had never seen anything quite like it. At first, due to its mechanical nature, she thought it might be one of the paradox Pokemon that had begun appearing in Hoenn lately. But there'd been no dream mist on the busy highway - or tera crystals, for that matter - so where had it come from? What aspect of reality was the simulation drawing from the create this monstrosity?[break][break]
"I have no idea," she admitted, feeling frustrated. She hated not knowing something. Aurelie was relying on her to be a voice of reason, an expert guide through this strange virtual reality.[break][break]
A barrage of lasers and bullets tore through the air, and Nomi had to veer her Cyclizar violently to one side to avoid getting hit.[break][break]
"Let's put some distance between us and that...thing," she agreed, turning to flee. Before she looked away, she tried to commit the robotic beast to memory. She would do her best to sketch it when she got back; maybe with Aurelie's help, she'd be able to reproduce it well enough to study more thoroughly.[break][break]
As she hit the ignition, zooming away from the rogue Pokemon, the simulation began to pixelate, the very road beneath their wheels warping and changing.[break][break]

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Crimson eyes shifted between each robed man, back and forth in quiet contemplation, considering Lulu's question.[break][break]
"We should side with truth."[break][break]
Her tone was decisive.[break][break]
"While it may be the case that the world is full of inexplicable anomalies - dreams that become reality - it's up to us to uncover their secrets. You're right - we're scientists. No matter what happens, we need to try and understand the way the world works. If we don't...then we might as well just sit back and accept our doom."[break][break]
If Nomi did find Arceus, she had one question in particular she absolutely needed answered: Why?[break][break]
Slowly, Nomi approached the Reshiram and its older companion, feeling a strange weightlessness - as if the gentle hand of destiny was guiding her forward.
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[break]
Infinite universes, infinite versions of the self.[break][break]
Who was Naomi Sato but a spec of dust, a cog in a wheel, a tiny star in a night sky full of galaxies? Who was Naomi Sato but a brilliant tool to be used by whichever organization snatched her up first? Who was Naomi Sato but a lonely girl, socially awkward, insatiably curious?[break][break]
In some branches, her parents lived. In some branches, she joined the League government, working alongside the likes of illeana reyes and Eva Morales from the start. In some branches, she was never noticed by the Unown, but by Deoxys instead.[break][break]
But one thing remained eternally true, consistent, untarnished by the logic of God's grand design. One thing would always matter, and unbeknownst to her, it was clearer now than it had been before. If Father Winter was looking carefully, he would be able to see it. He would be able to wield it.[break][break]
Naomi Sato's greatest wish had been, and always would be, the desire to be loved.[break][break]
[break]
When she reappeared back inside the small apartment bedroom, everything was as it had been. Rain drummed against the windows, a wintery mix that would slick the roads and delay school openings. Maisey was snoring loudly and Kallistatus was hovering by the bedside table, singular eye fixed on Nomi.[break][break]
She sucked in a shaky breath, then launched herself at the bed - specifically, at the warm body beneath the blankets. She didn't know when she'd started crying.[break][break]
(I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it)[break][break]
"Parker - !"[break][break]
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[break]
( - hey, thanks for helping me out! Never in a million years did I expect all of... this ...but you know, in a weird way, it's been fun - )[break][break]
Isaac Merlo was a thorn in the DRK Triad's side. Even the iterations of him that were not Avatars had been frustratingly difficult to kill. This one - The Wanderer - kept coming back. Just when you thought you'd eliminated him, he reappeared in a flash of verdant light.[break][break]
When you existed outside of time, you could survive most anything.[break][break]
( - but Isaac...all you really have to promise is that you won't disappear, okay? - )[break][break]
His talk of "other Nomis" made her head ache, but she tried not to show it. Lately, there'd been an incessant, low-key buzzing in the back of her brain, like the constant crackling of a faulty radio. Sometimes, at night, when she tried to fall asleep, she'd hear actual voices and words making it through the tenuous feed. The Unown did not seem to notice - or if they did, they did not care.[break][break]
Perhaps insanity was the price of innovation. The price of power. The price of prophecy.[break][break]
( - oh come on, Isaac...I'm not that special. It's you who's all brave and stuff - )[break][break]
"I want to save the universe," she said simply, trying to keep her voice calm. Neutrality was a strength of the Unown, and she had done her best to adopt it. Sentimentality was a weakness, one the Exalted could not afford.[break][break]
( - you're the best friend I've ever had - )[break][break]
Crimson eyes regarded the haggard man, noticing the many scars that littered his body: a permanent shrine to the myriad of trials he'd faced over the years. His smile was so open, so honest, so whimsical. He had endured decades of torture - for every time he died, he surely felt the pain prior to the reset - and he still found it as easy as breathing to look back at her with such an infinite well of patient compassion.[break][break]
( - you promised you wouldn't leave me - )[break][break]
"I want..." she trailed off. Her first answer felt suddenly shallow, empty of any real meaning. And this man demanded meaning. Besides, something strange was happening to him now, a ripple in space-time that piqued the interest of the Unown hovering around Nomi. Several of them floated over, swirling around him as an ethereal window seemed to manifest - no, not a window. A portal?[break][break]
[break]
Nomi blinked.[break][break]
( - loved you once? Of course I love you STILL, I could never hate you, Isaac! - )[break][break]
"I want - "[break][break]
( - I can't do this without you. I can't stop the Triad, I can't stop Arceus, I can't stop the next Meteno - I can't stop ANY of it alone - )[break][break]
Twinkling eyes. Calloused hands. Smiling faces. A thousand people across a thousand universes, each one working towards a better future. And one in particular - a sturdy woman, red-haired and battle-hardened, scribbling furiously, pissed off beyond imagining - caught Nomi's attention, and it was as if something inside her was tearing apart, getting ripped in two. It was sharp and sudden, like stepping on glass. Nomi cried out, hand going to her chest, where she felt her heartbeat quickening, blood pumping in rhythm with the flickering images in The Wanderer's timescape.[break][break]
( - does love make us weak, Isaac? - )[break][break]
Why did she listen to Holo? Why did she work for the DRK Triad? It could just as easily have been Rocket. The League. Any organization under the sun. So what was it? What did she want, really?[break][break]
"I want -"[break][break]
( - I won't let them hurt you again.)[break][break]
" - to be loved."
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