Her attention snaps to the second stranger upon mention of his name, she cared little for past meetings and one time acquaintances, but she could certainly remember the pokemon attached to that name as she adjusts her glasses and narrows her eyes. "Ohhh.... you're here too huh? Did you bring the little future dude with you too?"
[break][break]
He's smart enough to refuse the offer of water outright, her smirk grows a little wider as she wordlessly turns towards Frank and swishes the water around a little bit, a keen ear could probably hear the particles of sand clinking against the metal inside of the bottle, yet he takes the bait regardless and swipes the bottle from her outstretched hand. She only wished he could have been so hasty as to drink it without even looking, but the look of hope dying in his eyes is more than good enough for her as she barely suppresses a mean spirited laugh.
[break][break]
"Or something would be the best description. Fossils and archaeology don't really interest me in the slightest, but there's things that I need to find here that I can only find here." Things like Pokemon from another world, Beasts that aren't quite the ideal future she's looking for, but an alternate present that was still very interesting... "Did you two see that?"
[break][break]
It was a shadow in the corner of her vision, something watching from the sandstorm that made its presence known for only a fraction of a second, but she knows she saw something. Her head turns away from Frank as she tentatively crawls away from the safety of the outcropping, trying to see what that thing was without getting her face torn off by the sand... but it's gone already. Damnit.
[break][break]

+ Ultra Desert #1[break]
Xenon keenly dodges the question with a vague half answer, sees something out in the sand...[break]
Gerald Kaiser Frank Caffey

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Xenon's only reply to the girl's thanks is a dismissive grunt, followed by an amused chuckle as she watches the massive bug latch onto the Bewear's head to scramble its brains with a rattling buzz. She was even fooled into thinking that was all it took to take down the massive alpha pokemon as it fell over into a slumped pile of bear, which made it all the more surprising when it suddenly curled up and spun directly into the Yanmega, utterly demolishing the poor bug in one blow. And then it began to turn for a second spin, directly at her.
[break][break]
"Oh shit." She mutters as she quickly scrambles up to leap to the side, just barely out of the way as the Bewear smashes through the tree she was resting against and shooting a hail of wooden shrapnel through her clothes and right into her skin. Xenon hisses in pain as she rolls through the grass, but she has the presence of mind to stop herself and turn to face the raging alpha as it begins to turn once again to make another run at her. This time she was ready though. "Radon, Rollout!" The Scolipede doesn't even hesitate as it curls into a ball and begins carving a trench into the forest floor, spinning right into the side of the Bewear as it tries to ram into her and throwing it wildly off course. And thus the Rollout battle begins.
[break][break]
This didn't mean that Shalin was safe by any means however, while Xenon focused her attention on the Alpha Bewear that was trying to kill her, she would have to deal with the ominous drone of an approaching Alpha Orbeetle as it rips a half dozen trees from the ground with psychic power, throwing them right at the wild woman and plunging her into yet another fight against an absolute monster.
[break][break]

+

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

"Of course not, proper ultramodernism requires always looking your utmost best no matter the situation." Fashion was very important to Xenon right now, so its good that her partner in crime for the day would come dressed to impress as they walk into the Devon Corp headquarters. What's even more impressive to anyone who might know of Xenon's reputation within Team Rocket, is how utterly professional the girl maintains herself as they walk through the lobby of the building, spreading her arms wide to her side as she's scanned for weapons, and not having even a single stray pocket knife on her or in her purse as they go through the metal detectors. The absolute worst it gets is a Houndoom raising its head and taking a good long stare at her as it sniffs the air, before finally dismissing her as they move into the building proper and hop in an elevator up to the fourth floor.
[break][break]
As for the pokemon she releases once the security is sent away, it could only be the compact specter Gengar popping out of her shadow to emerge next to Lilligant, a devious smile on his face as it snickers for reasons unknown. Probably because of how easily he had snuck past literally every single security pokemon in that lobby, a fun little challenge that Xenon allowed to keep him sharp. Maybe she couldn't resist just a little mischief herself, even at her utmost professional.
[break][break]
"Alright, lets go!" Xenon shouts as she barrels into the room behind Yumi, Argon following even closer behind as he sinks into the wall and rushes around to corner the Porygon2 before it could escape into a computer or phone. A red body swivels around to look at the intruders, digital eyes blinking into a glaring face as it charges up a Psybeam and fires at Argon, only a narrow duck back into the wall keeping him from getting his brains scrambled as he takes evasive maneuvers from the rampaging data Pokemon. "Not our target, knock it out in one go and we'll move to the next room." Xenon says tersely as she starts moving in a wide berth around the Porygon2 and towards the next door out of the office.
[break][break]

+

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

The battle goes about as well as Xenon expected as the bird dodges and weaves through each of their attacks individually, a fiery red blur that her eyes can barely keep track of between Thunderbolts. As much as she talked herself up, there was no way she'd be able to take this thing on on her own, she needed to distractions in order to effectively work.
[break][break]
The broken body of the primal Slither Wing is tossed to the ground in a hurricane of blades, she curses under her breath as she takes a step forwards to drag the broken Pokemon back to its owner before it could get finished off, but a timely intervention of Sylvia's Mawile and Scizor makes that unnecessary as the Moltres is driven back by the flurry of bites and punches. The bird is smarter than she gave it credit for, most of the attacks are ignored as the steel type moves glance harmlessly off its fiery plumage, only its most vital areas are seriously protected as it bats the duo away with a punishing Wing Attack.
[break][break]
"But you forgot about me." Xenon mutters as she snaps her fingers in a staccato rhythm, the signal for Argon to make his move. The Gengar's ears can barely pick up the noise over the sound of bubbling lava and screeching bird cries, but his smile widens as he suddenly rushes at the Moltres from below and latches onto its belly, a shrill squawk of surprise escaping its beak as that rolling thundercloud above claps and throws a Thunderbolt straight at Argon! Or at least, it would have were it not for a certain bird that was directly between attack and recipient!
[break][break]
Its the first decisive strike of the battle on their side, lightning hits the Moltres dead on and reverberates through its hollowed bones, muscles spasming in agony as it thrashes and throws the Gengar off with a screech of righteous fury. Argon lets out a pained cry as it hits the ground with the speed of a bullet, rolling across the heated rocks to its feet and shooting a stubborn glare back at the bird as it focuses all its attention on the creature that would dare to harm a legend! "NOW NOW NOW, DON'T LET UP, KEEP IT ON THE BACK FOOT!" Xenon screams as she slaps Radon on her carapace, prompting the Scolipede to go charging in with a swiping Aqua Tail to push the bird back before it could focus its wrath on Argon.
[break][break]

+ Xenon's Gengar hits Moltres with a strong Thunderbolt from above, severely injuring the bird and focusing its aggro on the Gengar. Before it can retaliate, she then sends in her Scolipede to keep up the pressure with a barrage of Aquatails, the Moltres retreats from the water and is on the defense.

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

To say that the city was having a bad day at the moment was something of an understatement. The dam broke after the first PorygonZ prodded at some critical infrastructure regarding power routing near the company, after that it was a massive data breach as the swarm of Porygon began to flood into the city and break into every system they could. Traffic lights flash wildly and jam traffic all across downtown, car headlights flash other drivers and cause accidents, household appliances explode as they're overloaded with energy, it was sheer chaos and the public was crying out for Devon Corp's heads as cybersecurity specialists run through the city trying to catch the stray Porygons before they can do further damage.
[break][break]
It was the perfect backdrop for Xenon as she twirls her lanyard on her finger casually, walking down the street with Rhodium in tow as she scans for her partner in crime for the afternoon. Her smile grows wider as she spots Yumi Hasegawa, picking up her pace until she's right in front of the girl and pulling on her outstretched hand to slam her into a hug. "O.M.G. your outfit is looking so damn adorable!!" Xenon squeals as she squeezes the total stranger tightly, before breaking off and doing a little twirl. "So great to meet you girl, but not as great as it is to meet me I'm sure. Kidding, kidding, but not really though!"
[break][break]
A quiet series of beeps from the Iron Jugulis catches Xenon's attention and her eyes seem to glaze over for a moment as she reads an unseen series of codes running across the inside of her glasses, a quick nod and a tap on the side later and Xenon's attention turns right back to Yumi. "Alright so, I'm sure you've noticed by now, but the whole city is like, a little bit fucked. I did that, hashtag humble brag, but I didn't just do it for fun! Basically our target is gonna be oveeeeeeer-" She stretches out her arm and points randomly, slowly adjusting her angle until she settles on what appears to be the fourth floor of Devon Corp's headquarters, lights flashing randomly in the windows and screams echoing from behind closed doors. "-there! There's gonna be a lot of Porygon, but the only ones you need to focus on is the one that look like this!" Xenon pulls out her phone and shows off a Porygon2 with a blue coloration to it, a phenomenon that usually only happened when a rogue space particle hit a motherboard in just the right way.
[break][break]
"Easy to understand right? Any questions, concerns, praises of my brilliance?" Whether Yumi had anything to say or not, it would have to be a walk and talk as Xenon calls back Rhodium into its pokeball and starts walking towards Devon Corp headquarters, looking for all intents and purposes like just another random tech hurrying to the scene to put out the digital fire that she had started.
[break][break]

+

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

A clap of thunder sounds the beginning as the distortion fully forms, space and time bending into incomprehensible forms around the group as colors swirl and blend into alien shades unseen by mortal men. She should be a little more scared of what was going to happen, she knew what kinds of things happened in a Space Time Distortion, she had read the Rocket Reports from other survivors, but all she thinks right now is how damn excited she is to get a first hand look at this kind of phenomenon!
[break][break]
Her Pokemon share little of her enthusiasm as they crowd tightly around her to protect her from the oncoming rush of Alpha Pokemon emerging from the void, a ginormous Bewear bursting through the tree cover and charging them with murder in their eyes. "Argon, Sludge Bomb." There's not a hint of fear in her voice as she calmly orders the Gengar forwards into the fray, a rather stark contrast to the Gengar himself as he lets out a shrill cry and flies forwards to attack the Alpha Bewear with a massive glob of poisonous gunk. Just in time to knock it down before it could throw down a brutal Hammer Arm into that Beedrill as well, a happy accident or a purposeful choice from a normally cruel girl?
[break][break]
"You should watch your back a bit more closely, your insides almost got splattered all over the outside." Xenon calls out cheerfully as she continues sitting against her tree and observing the fallen Bewear, already getting back up with murder in its eyes and darkness in its palm as it gets ready for some Payback.
[break][break]

+

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

It hurts.
[break][break]
It hurts so much.
[break][break]
She tries to ignore the pain, a relic of the past that she would much rather be without, but it clings to her frostbitten arm like a shadow, always clinging to her back.
[break][break]
She rides further into the storm atop Radon, she can feel blood dripping through the cracks of the frozen limb and hitting the snow with a hiss, leaving a trail of red ribbon that binds her to the snow.
[break][break]
The storm begins to break as she rides through the dimensional tunnel that the king had forced upon her, she emerges alongside mint frost looking like absolute hell. Her arm is frozen so badly that there's no possibly saving it, a last gift from Chien-Pao before they had all been sucked into this fragmented dream, she can barely even move it as she dismounts her Scolipede and touches foot upon tainted grass.
[break][break]
"Hm. Not a fan of this place, very primitive." She remarks casually as she starts looking around for... something. Her associate shouts something about focusing on the poison, something about death fueling something or another. "You can save the weaklings yourself if you really want to. I'm busy." Xenon shoots back, her tone ice cold as she wanders off towards the nearby Pokemart.
[break][break]
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. SMASH!
[break][break]
The pommel of her sword smashes right through the glass of the locked door as she smashes it over and over, clearing out a space big enough for her arm to fit through as she drops the blade and reaches through to unlock the door. It slides open with a bit of effort and Xenon walks right in, still looking for something... something... ah! There!
[break][break]
A minute later she walks back out with a backpack filled with medical supplies slung over her uninjured shoulder, crouching down to pick her sword back up as she walks back to where the rest of the group had emerged from. "Alright gang, good news and bad news. Good news is, I'll help you losers out with saving these worthless primitive dipshits. Bad news is, I'm pretty sure this arm is fucked! So after we're done, gonna need someone's help to cut it off. Such is life." There's little doubt she's serious if one takes even a cursory glance at the state of her right arm, the flesh is already undergoing necrosis from the cursed snow that Beast of Ruin had hit her with, if nothing was done than it was more than likely going to reach her heart before the day was up.
[break][break]
But that is that and this is this, without sparing another moment the girl points towards mint frost and whistles. "Radon, shake it up!" The Scolipede that stands at her side releases a series of clicking and hissing sounds in response, rushing forwards past the Rocket Beast and slamming its upper body into the ground, creating a massive Earthquake targeting as many of the venomous hands as it can in one fell sweep.
[break][break]
K8qQ7n73
[break][break]

+ Xenon raids the nearby Pokemart for medical supplies better than what they have on hand[break]
Requests amputation of her arm when the opportunity arises[break]
Scolipede uses Earthquake to wipe out as many of the hands as it can!

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

So what brings an Ultramodern woman like Xenon Civitas Antheil to some back corner of the world like Route 102? Well for one, it's pretty stupid to assume that Xenon ever needs a reason to do anything, things like reasoning and logic are artifacts of the past that she shuns in their totality. But if she was really pressed to give a reason as to why she's here, it's actually surprisingly simple for such an enigmatic woman.
[break][break]
She was here to train her Beldum.
[break][break]
Yes yes, it's rather staggering to hear, her Pokemon don't in fact come fully trained the moment she catches them. Even someone as great and genius as the Ultramodern Maniac needs to put in just the slightest bit of effort into training the baby Beldum, tossing it into the fray against Rattattas and Pidgeys to teach it how to properly use its body to smash the wild pokemon into the dirt.
[break][break]
She had been at this for the past day or so, camping out in the wilderness and attacking Pokemon at random while Argon and Radon dutifully watched over the baby Chromium, but the routine had rather drastically changed as the group felt... something tingling at the back of their necks. Something about the space around them was off, colors seemed just a little too saturated, the static in the air raised the hairs on Xenon's arms, the length of her steps was just slightly off. She licks her lips and calls Chromium back towards her as it finishes slamming its body into a stray Lillipup, a rather odd sight to see on Route 102...
[break][break]
"I think we might have just found something much more interesting to investigate team..." But rather than trepidation or anxiety, Xenon can't help but feel a little excited as she packs up her camp and starts walking deeper into the forest, following the sound of buzzing wings and cheerful yelling to a small clearing right in the middle of a large group of trees. But she doesn't announce her presence. She stares at Shalin Nariya as she trains with her Beedrill.... and she sits down to wait. Wait for whatever was about to come.
[break][break]

+ Yumi Hasegawa

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

After the fight between Xenon and Shred is settled with a good bit of slapstick comedy and broken noses, its time to get serious as they're settled in for the beginning of their test. The Ultramodernist can't help but grin at the prospect of crushing whatever challenge their rocket overlords had to throw at her, hands tracing over each of her three Pokeballs as she awaits the beginning of the end. The world flashes red as the simulation chamber kicks into high gear, a wave of thick arid heat heralds the coming challenge as their wristlets beep in unison, the message is ignored as Xenon stares right into the eyes of the legendary phoenix.

[break][break]

Its plume is flickering flames licking at the walls, melting rock into ultraheated magma in an instant as it spreads its wings and screeches its supremacy over the humans who would dare to enter its domain. She should be terrified, perhaps she is a little as she feels the Pressure pushing down on her shoulders, her knees quiver and her legs threaten to fail her completely if she makes even a single step towards this thing. But more than fear, the dominating emotion that Xenon feels towards this legend of the past is Hate, an instinctual revulsion broiling up from her gut and stoking the fire in her chest to an unbearable degree.

[break][break]

"Moltres huh? Couldn't have been something a little more Ultramodern? Ah well." She mutters as her hands snap towards two different pokeballs on her belt, throwing them both out and releasing Radon and Argon to the field. The heat is already drying up her eyeballs and making it hard to see, prolonged exposure to the heat of an active volcano would kill them all if nothing was done about it, but focusing on that and ignoring the fiery death bird would kill them all immediately if nothing was done about that. "Hit it hard before it can move first, Thunderbolt!"

[break][break]

Immediately the two Pokemon burst into action as they spot the threat to their master, Argon lifts off of the ground and sweeps to the right as a dozen blades of wind hit the spot where he was once standing, electricity dancing on his fingertips as he points up at the air and summons a thundercloud above the bird to strike it with a brilliant bolt of lightning from the heavens. But the phoenix is faster than either of them could have anticipated as it suddenly drops into a 90 degree dive, outpacing the spear of electricity and letting it fizzle out harmlessly into a pool of lava as it prepares its next attack. Radon meanwhile is already moving to protect the trio as it curls up around them, water quickly coating its tail and splashing along them to cool them down as best as it can in this ultrahot hellhole they've been transported to. "Alright lackeys, time to prove your worth! None of our Pokemon can take a direct attack from that dusty fucking artifact, so we have to split its attention as much as we can! Lets kick some fucking ass!"

[break][break]

+ Xenon brings out both her Gengar and her Scolipede, Gengar attacks with Thunderbolt while narrowly dodging an Air Slash thrown out by Moltres, Scolipede wraps around the group and tries to cool them off with Aquatail.

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

The first step had been too simple, painfully simple really. Phishing emails generated from hundreds of vaguely authentic looking emails, sent to hundreds of low level Devon Corp Employees. Most were smart enough to not click on suspicious links from emails they didn't recognize, but all it took was one or two suckers to click on that little blue hyperlink, and just like that she has access to anything they type, including usernames and passwords. But they didn't have access to anything truly valuable, not what she was looking for, that's why she needed to move further up the chain. She uses their credentials to message a superior with a draft of some project or another, she has a trojan horse hidden in the text document that once again opens a backdoor she can exploit.
[break][break]
At this point she would have started running into problems as she fights against the Porygon2 firewalls that the higher ups have to protect their files, entire teams of black hat hackers ram themselves face first into Devon Corp’s cyber security routinely and barely ever scrape anything much more important than an employee list or bait projects that have almost zero funding. But they didn't have the power of the future on their side.
[break][break]
Rhodium's eyes blink dispassionately as it scans through thousands of Porygon a second, tagging any data that looks relevant or connected to important projects with an invisible code that only it could see before moving onto the next, and the next, and the next, all the while Xenon focused on prying open their firewall as wide as she possibly could with a malicious grin etched into her visage. There was really only going to be one or two Porygon that she needed to capture to extract their data, but if she only released one or two, it wouldn't be very hard for Devon Corp cybersecurity to just recapture the Porygon before she could, wasting all of her efforts and making it harder to do again once they patched their security.
[break][break]
But that was why she wouldn't be releasing just one or two Porygon. She was going to be releasing one or two HUNDRED Porygon. The Ultramodern maniac cackles to herself quietly as lines of code reflect across her glasses in the dark hotel room she'd taken residence in, a dozen copies of Dubious_Disk.APT get randomly inserted into various Porygon2s, in just eight hours they'd "evolve" into malicious glitchy PorygonZs that would crack the network open like an egg. It would probably throw the company into chaos for the week while they worked on putting their system back together and catching all the Porygons that would be released, more than a few people were going to lose their jobs over this once they backtraced where this all started, but Xenon didn't particularly care about those people really. They'd probably track her too, though it would take a damn long time before they could with the amount of junk data she had covered her tracks in with the help of Rhodium's ultramodern future tech. Wouldn't surprise her if her identity was national news by the end of the month.
[break][break]
"The future is now Rhodium, now let's make some sparks fly~" The woman trills as she closes her connection to the Devon Corp network. At 12 PM she would be meeting with her Rocket partner near Devon Corp headquarters, at which point they'd spend the day hunting Porygon while acting as cybersecurity. Nothing could ruin this plan~
[break][break]

+ Yumi Hasegawa

[attr="class","pokeclass"]