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Nomi thought back to the white-haired woman who had snatched Holo out from underneath hers and Lulu's fingertips. The memory made Nomi want to grind her teeth in frustration.[break][break]
"No specific hand gestures or symbols that I can remember," Nomi answered cooly. "The woman had an Unown-A, and she escaped with Holo through a standard interdimensional rift."[break][break]
She considered Mint's comment about the DRK Triad's panel, with their logo embedded into it.[break][break]
"As for the panel...tech, likely. I have long suspected them of being connected to the Macro Cosmos corporation."[break][break]
Nomi folded her arms, letting out a soft sigh. There was so much they needed to understand: far too many questions, and not nearly enough answers. She glanced at the collection of Unown drifting around the two Rockets. If there was anything she knew for sure, it was that the Unown were a critical puzzle piece that needed to be popped into place - sooner rather than later.[break][break]
"I will continue studying the Unown, and working with them. Building trust takes time, but I feel I am close to a breakthrough. Sometimes, it is as if I can hear them whispering to me..." Beckoning. A cry for help, or some sort of prophetic message? At times, she wasn't sure.[break][break]
She turned warm eyes on Mint, and a smile crossed her lips, even as her troubled thoughts remained. "I appreciate you coming to me about all this, Mint. Let's begin our search for Father Winter's body in the rifts. I do feel confident that we haven't seen the last of him."

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Nenet's Hatterene cleared the way, and Nomi was able to deftly snatch the Pokeball that had successfully captured the Nihilego. She nodded appreciatively to Alpha, then retreated back towards the stairs. The Pokeball was warm in her palm, as if vibrating with residual energy. She instinctively tightened her grip just as Nenet whispered about more potential dangers in the dark...[break][break]
When they were safely back on the deck of the decrepit ship, Nomi turned to Nenet, assessing the other woman.[break][break]
"Good, you managed to recover the log," she noticed, pleased. "If you discover anything further regarding its contents, please let me know. Perhaps we can return here again soon, and continue exploring the ship. For now, I think we ought to head back. I'd like to write up a report on the Nihilego's control of the dead Megalopolan while the details are fresh in my mind."[break][break]
She paused.[break][break]
"That is not the first time I have seen an undead Megalopolan. There is another rift - Lesser Megalopolis - that is home to hoards of them. Those are even more dangerous, for they do not seem to be controlled by any outside force, like this one was by the Nihilego."[break][break]
So many questions, and very few answers. Zev Harcourt had been frequenting Lesser Megalopolis due to his connection with Necrozma, she remembered; Nomi made a mental note to check in with him regarding his progress there.[break][break]
For now, however, she smiled at her companion. "In any case, let's get going."[break][break]

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Nomi breathed a soft sigh of relief as the man bought her lie. Well, it wasn't a complete lie. She was a PhD student at Slateport University, after all.[break][break]
As she gathered up her equipment, Kallistatus watched the man with its unblinking eye, still somewhat distrustful. The feeling seemed to be mutual: the "security guard" fellow was staring at her with an equally skeptical expression. She tried to look nonchalant as she headed towards the cave entrance.[break][break]
"Oh uh," she began, glancing over her shoulder at him as they made their way inside. His line of questioning wasn't necessarily accusatory - but it had an undercurrent of suspicion. She couldn't really blame him: she knew the League was full of competent operatives, trained to weed out Rocket infiltrators.[break][break]
"There's more of us here, but we had to divide and conquer, you know? There are several entrances to the cave system below. If we want the best chance at figuring out what sort of energy this island is producing, we need to attack the problem from multiple angles."[break][break]
That sounded scientific, right?[break][break]
The interior of the cave was cool and damp. Nomi looked around, assessing the landscape. She needed a way to shake this man, but how to go about it...[break][break]
Something flashed in the corner of her vision. A whisp of familiar purple.[break][break]
"I think some of that dream mist you mentioned is here," she said pleasantly.

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Nomi gasped softly in surprise. As she gazed at the man through Kallistatus's eye, she realized that she knew him. It was jack wainwright, a friend she hadn't seen in quite sine time. As a League Ranger, he must have been sent to the island to investigate.[break][break]
Nomi's brow creased. Jack had been oddly absent from her life as of late. He'd been known to frequent her brewery, and she often saw him at various events around Slateport...but now that she considered it, she hadn't seen him much at all lately.[break][break]
His kindness towards her Unown brought a small smile to her lips.[break][break]
Nomi's eyes flickered back to their normal crimson, and she deftly pulled off her mask, hiding it within her jacket. Jack didn't know she was Rocket, but luckily, she had a perfectly reasonable explanation for why she might be creeping about this strange new island - one that Jack was sure to believe, given what he did know about her.[break][break]
"Jack, is that you?" She called, stepping out from behind the ruined pillar. She gave him a small wave. "It's been a while."[break][break]
Kallistatus floated over to her, bobbing up and down expectantly, as if pleased.

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And just like that, the suspicions about the incident at the Ancient Tomb that had been gnawing at Nomi's heart for weeks were voiced into reality, made whole and solid and actualized. priam conrad had also made the suggestion that there had been some sort of shared dream, that everyone who had taken part in the Ancient Tomb conflict had been temporarily supernaturally imprisoned in a memory of Galar. But her conversation with Priam had been mostly conjecture.[break][break]
Aurelie wasn't guessing. Her tone was confident. She remembered.[break][break]
Nomi gazed at the forge, the implications of the truth overwhelming. The feeling of having spent twenty years with Parker had not been unfounded, it didn't make her crazy: it had actually happened. Nomi could not even begin to deal with that, the gravity of such a revelation entirely too profound - and dangerous - to confront in the midst of a Dream Mist vision. She could not risk manifesting imagery that might threaten to break her heart - the loss of something precious; the gaining of terrible certainties. She was injured there, Nomi knew. Injured in a terrible way, protecting Nomi. Always protecting Nomi.[break][break]
To Aurelie, she said as calmly as she could manage, "I was in Circhester, yes. I, too, ran a workshop - a forge like this one." She paused, then turned to stare at the red haired woman with a curious expression that bordered on sorrowful. "The question I wanted to ask you...I wanted you to help me figure out how to infuse Infinity Energy into manmade objects. Weapons, specifically. The only reason I even started thinking about it, was because it was written in the field notes I recovered from the Ancient Tomb. I felt so certain that I succeeded once, but could not remember exactly how I had done it."[break][break]
The young scientist touched her fingers to the wooden worktable. It felt real, the rough woodgrain pricking her fingers in a very tangible way. Was the Dream Mist growing stronger, or was this merely the power of Nomi's imagination - her desire to relive what had happened? To understand it?[break][break]
"I think you - we - did this once. In the memory of Galar. We may not have been in the same city, but we had the same experience. And if that experience was real...well." She smiled softly, a little sad, a little pleased. "Then maybe we can do it again, in Hoenn."

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The crystals shuddered, faltered, their growth like creeping fingers with too-sharp nails coming to a sudden halt as Nomi didn't just hear Parker's voice, finally: she listened to it.[break][break]
Someone I want.[break][break]
Different memories, now: Parker's lips, hands clawing desperately at her clothes. Parker's mouth, the chill of a lake at midnight. Parker in her office, lounging around while she worked. Parker's smirk when Nomi told Cillian, point-blank, that she trusted Parker with her life. The heat of Parker's body, in a bed that wasn't this bed, in a place that wasn't this place. A wedding dress, strawberry cake, laughing voices filled with warmth and love and acceptance: the opposite of abandonment, the antidote for loneliness.[break][break]
"Find Isaac?" She whispered, choking back a sob. Kallistatus bobbed up and down next to her, as if it had expected this request. Rationality began to return to Nomi's expression, though it did nothing to extinguish the anguish.[break][break]
"Can you find him?" She asked the shiny Unown-K. With a sudden clarity - and recognition - Nomi remembered the innumerable loneliness she had felt from the Unown when she'd witnessed the birth of the universe.[break][break]
[break]
The voice that was all voices, inside her mind. The collective soul of the Unown.[break][break]
Kallistatus disappeared, and Nomi focused on Isaac. He was like a star: bright, unbreakable, a beacon of hope. The grin of a trickster, the heart of a hero. Something tugged at her consciousness, and she followed the thread...to Petalburg Woods. Kallistatus popped into existence within a thickly wooded canopy, then drifted down, its singular eye fixated on two figures below. One was canine in nature, ethereal in the way it shimmered like a living aurora borealis, the other...a broken, bleeding husk of a familiar man.[break][break]
In the bedroom, the crystals reflected the scene Nomi was witnessing for Parker to see.[break][break]
"They've killed him," Nomi moaned miserably. Later, she'd find out exactly which Underboss had done it, and her heart would break all over again.[break][break]
[break]
Kallistatus moved in, silent, an invisible camera amidst the foliage. There was a beautiful, diamond-bright pool below: a hidden gem of the forest. And she did see, just barely, that Isaac was still breathing. He was holding onto life as stubbornly as he'd always held onto everything, refusing to give up for even a second. How could he possibly rest when there was still work to be done? People and Pokemon to save? Lives to fight for? He wasn't just any star.[break][break]
He was a shooting star: burning until the very end.

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The lack of fog revealed a man - a somewhat familiar man, she realized, as if she'd seen his face in passing before (or on social media, perhaps?). Maskless, and looking fairly confident as he released his own paradox Pokemon, he was definitely a member of the League government - someone sent to secure the island for them. Nomi backed up slightly, taking on a more defensive stance.[break][break]
"That's an unhelpful question, as it lacks nuance," she told him, stalling as she assessed his Pokemon. His Paradox was a Slither Wing and he also had a Murkrow. Kallistatus would be vulnerable to the later, as a pure Psychic type. She could remedy that, however, and then her Iron Jugulis could handle the Slither Wing...if she was careful. It was not an ideal matchup.[break][break]
Activating the Tera Orb at her hip, the shiny Unown-K began to glow with a dark energy. Obsidian and sapphire crystals coated its symbol body, glittering as it Terastallized. As a Dark Type, it would no longer be weak to the Murkrow.[break][break]
"For example, someone you might consider an ally could very easily turn on you for selfish gain," Nomi continued calmly. "As for my primary purpose in being here, it's not to fight you. I'm just trying to get into that cave."[break][break]
She pointed, finally seeing the gaping maw of rock ahead due to the improved visibility.

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Nomi blinked up at the hand in her face. Panic swelled as she realized that the man had noticed her after all. Trying to remain cool - maybe he didn't suspect her of being Rocket yet? - she took his hand, and allowed him to help her to her feet.[break][break]
"Thanks," she muttered through her mask. Then, deciding to take the risk in favor of a more believable lie, she pulled it down, smiled, and held out her hand to him. "Let's try that again. I'm Naomi, nice to meet you. PhD student at Slateport University. I was sent here to run some experiments in the cave system. What are you doing here?"[break][break]
Kallistatus seemed to sense Nomi's distress. It blinked away from the Ceruledge, appearing by her side in an instant. She glanced it, her smile turning sheepish.[break][break]
"Oh, sorry about my Unown. It's a very curious creature - and a bit protective of me."

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Nomi didn't notice the crystals, even if they noticed her.[break][break]
Her focus was elsewhere: a vision of her parents in the Border, offering her an alternative future where they would finally be together - all it required was her own death, so she could join them. A vision of Lulu Flint, murdered by the DRK Triad in some faraway place - the thing Nomi had feared most when she'd first learned of the woman's sudden disappearance. A vision of jayden cross, overcome by exhaustion and ruination, collapsed on the cold, hard ground of the Cave of Origin, succumbing to the wounds sustained by the attacks from his peers. A vision of Isaac Merlo, with his mischievous, knowing smile, a real-life version of his Rondez-View of Luv route, saying softly: "Maybe the only thing that matters is that I love you" - but then he, too, crumpled beneath the violence destined to seek him, now that he'd made his choice - [break][break]
The crystals threatened to expand, new patches appearing on the walls, the floor, the bedside table. The entire apartment seemed to be transforming into some sort of Tera-embedded cave.[break][break]
"All my life, I've been abandoned," she choked out an agonized sob. "And the people I love never come back."[break][break]
Kallistatus appeared beside Nomi's shoulder, staring at Parker expectantly.[break][break]
Another vision: Parker, on a snowy battlefield, arm dangling uselessly by her side, blood dripping down her face, her hands, her legs, her everything.[break][break]
Nomi began to curl in on herself, wrapping her arms around her legs and pulling them in to her chest.[break][break]
"Isaac was supposed to be different. He promised he'd always be there for me. He convinced me I was someone special, someone worth loving, someone you would want."[break][break]
Nomi's eyes flickered from white to red to white again, like a faulty string of solstice lights.[break][break]

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The TAUNT worked - the Unown, captivated by the ridiculous nature of the Perrserker, turned their charging symbolic bodies away from the man accosting Nomi and aimed at it instead. Five beams of HIDDEN POWER blasted forth towards the pesky feline, reminiscent of a laser show. Perhaps in a different context, it would have been a lovely sight.[break][break]
Nomi narrowed her eyes, clearly identifying the distraction tactic. "That's a clever Perrserker you've got," she conceded. "But also foolish - five on one does not seem like ideal odds, hm?"[break][break]
The equipment was still her priority. She glanced at it, weighing her options. The Kingambit was beginning to free itself from the ice, so Nomi motioned for Alpha to attack again. Then she focused on the crates - she did have a backup plan, a way of protecting them no matter what the man tried. If she went through with it, however, and the man got away, he would be able to report to the League that he'd encountered a Rocket with strange powers - Avatar-like powers.[break][break]
What does it matter? Isaac already knows, and he's one of them now.[break][break]
That thought left a bitter taste in her mouth. She frowned. Once, she would have laughed at the idea of Isaac betraying her, but now...[break][break]
A familiar anger welled in the pit of her stomach.[break][break]
"Leave," she commanded the man, hardening her tone. "You have no idea what I am capable of."[break][break]
A second ICE TERA BLAST rocketed towards the Kingambit.

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Lilac's THUNDER WAVE just missed, mere inches from hitting the nimble Sharpedo. The Starmie spun in the water, its red gem glowing like an underwater beacon, blinking with frustration. There wasn't much time to regroup, however, as a MEGAHORN blasted up from the depths below, crashing into Lilac and knocking the Starmie off balance. With a hasty RECOVER, Lilac was able to avoid too much damage - though if the Seaking's goal had been to delay the Starmie's pursuit of the Sharpedo, it had certainly succeeded.[break][break]
Luckily for Lilac, there was support from above. Kallistatus the shiny Unown-K glowed white hot, then sent a beam of HIDDEN POWER at the man on the Sharpedo. From the boat, Nomi watched water spray as various energies clashed. The man had not yet gained on her, but if he continued to evade her Pokemon, he would eventually arrive...[break][break]
"Need more speed," she decided, taking out another Pokeball. She released her Python, the Iron Jugulis's three heads regarding her with eager eyes.[break][break]
"We cannot let that man catch us," she told the paradox. Sensing the urgency, the Iron Jugulis roared, then summoned a TAILWIND behind the boat, vigorously pushing it forward.

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Nomi laughed too, heart leaping at the wonder reflected in Cillian's eyes. The genuine smile on his face softened him, handsome and regal, and Nomi knew that very few people ever had the privilege of seeing him like this. She squeezed his hand affectionately before letting go, then walked forward to greet the Unown that swirled above them, dancing amidst the vast cosmos.[break][break]
"I think this is where they all go - captured, wild - it doesn't matter. This is their home."[break][break]
Beside her, Kallistatus stood apart - its shining blue body marking it as unique. Several Unown drifted down to observe it, forming patters that spelled nonsensical words, though Nomi had a feeling it meant something to them. Kallistatus bobbed up and down in response, as if taking part in a silent conversation with the others.[break][break]
Nomi beamed at them.[break][break]
"I love them, Cill," she said simply, wholeheartedly. "I don't think many ever have. I think that's why they picked me...I offered them something more precious than power or wisdom, both of which they already have plenty of."[break][break]
An Unown-F seemed to sense her meaning, appearing by her shoulder.[break][break]
"Family," she murmured, then glanced over her shoulder back at Cillian. "That's what they are to me now. Like you."[break][break]
Despite it all - despite Isaac's fate - she still meant it.

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