"Galar? I've always wanted to go there, just not in the middle of a battlefield." Soyeon said aloud, finding some kind of irony in her wish being granted. She had been a little hesitant about taking the sword from its place, but at her touch, one of the statues of the legendary canines had come to life. Her eyes looked over at the awakened canine and then slowly offered the blade over to the legendary. Its form had invigorated the scientist, even as Gigantamax Pokémon would appear over the horizon. She nodded to Not Zacian and charged forward with him, readying herself for a battle!


THEO BECKETT

"R-Revenge. Yeah." Soyeon replied. It wasn't the word on her mind for what she had gone through, for what Cillian Quinn had put her through. The mention of what atrocity that had been committed by her hands made her hands shake for a moment, knuckles balled together until they turned white. Soyeon had trouble calming herself down while her eyes were anywhere but Zev’s direction. Her thoughts concerning the blonde were nothing short of ill intent. She had housed them for a while, since that day he had made her end a life. Somewhere in the middle of the vomiting and sobbing, something in her just felt as if it had worn down fully.

"Not just revenge, like…hurting until they beg for it to end. I don't want them to recover. I want them to really hurt, so much that they don't mess with me ever again. I-I want them to…" Soyeon hesitated, eyes cast over to the Charizard. She didn't know if she had it in her to finish the thought, but her emotions had gotten the better of her again as the word spilled out of her mouth. "Die." Hearing the word alongside the implications of it. Yet here she was, her form shaking and teeth grit while feeling herself on the brink of tears once more. Ignis had been busy with a Cufant that was growing rowdy from the disturbance in New Mauville. He used FIRE BLAST and sent the poor thing scooting back, while Soyeon said nothing and threw the Pokeball towards the Cufant. She didn't fetch the ball like before, only standing in place and just shaking. Tears bordered on her face again as she choked on air trying to speak. But when air found its way into her lungs, the soft and malleable voice had disappeared, replaced with hatred and vitriol.

"I can't eat, I can't sleep. And the noise, that fucking noise! I can't get it out of my head. I did everything they wanted since I got here. I gave reports, I did what they told me, I did it all without complaint. A perfect worker bee that's got nowhere to run to. And then…" She was stopped only by her hyperventilating, having come to the realization of what she had been fully shouting as she stopped to catch her breath. Tears flowed down her face, though she was angry, upset. The embodiment of rage itself. She took a moment to calm herself enough to talk before her eyes went to Zev.

"I want to ruin him." She said without thinking again. "I want him to feel every bit of pain he's caused me and more."

( attempting catch on Cufant )

Zev Harcourt

Their fight lasts only until the scenario changed once more. Soyeon let out an audible gasp as the scene around them shifted into something else entirely. The sights and sounds of a city in a wide blackout were all gone in an instant, replaced by a battlefield of old, one that she didn't quite recognize at first. Soyeon's eyes took her over towards the weapons sitting before them as her feet got ahead of her mind.

"I'm partial to the sword myself." she commented, reaching out to grasp it. "Do you know where we are, by chance?"


THEO BECKETT

To her surprise, Zev was suddenly talking more than she had ever seen him before. The woman remained quiet while absorbing his words about contributing to the cause. She looked pretty surprised as the more nonchalant of the two would finish his explanation. There was a lot to think about there, though she only laughed a little to herself. "That's the most I've heard you talk since we've met." She tossed him a smirk that rose up from a troubled expression that soon returned while she whistled at her Charizard. A hand went to the Metagross in the background while he charged off in its direction. She focused back in on the conversation, running a hand through her hair.

"But I understand the sentiment. I just need to...bury my head in work for a bit." Her expression returned to its troubled look, the woman anxiously fiddling with her hair for a moment while thinking about her meeting with Cillian just a few weeks prior. She had been faring better, or as better as you could be for somebody like her. "I don't care what that work is, just...I don't want to think about things for a bit." The Charizard had made short work of the Metagross with a sudden FLAMETHROWER and charcoaled the poor thing alive. Soyeon had given up trying to police his roughness. She just tossed a pokeball out and captured it as is. They moved on through the area before she hesitated about something.

"You've been in this business longer than I have. Have you ever...wanted to hurt somebody that wronged you? Like, not just teaching them a lesson or breaking them. I mean..." Soyeon's lips betrayed her, not wanting to speak the very word that she had been trying to avoid.

Zev Harcourt

Soyeon had been taking another break to sit down on the sandy shores of the beach when a voice had graced her ears. She looked up just in time to catch sight of another woman looking at her and asking if she was alright. Her expression was still a gateway that put her erratic behavior for all to see. She was brave to be out in the sand like this: dressed like she was off to go delving into some mine rather than enjoy the day on the beach. But who was Soyeon to judge considering she had on a light sweater and anything to cover up her body. It was hot, but far better than the alternative.

"O-Oh! Er, hi." She smiled at the other woman, grateful for the distraction from her thoughts for the moment. Yet how the hell was she going to answer that question. It was obvious something was wrong, but who could she tell? Nobody would dare to stay with nor help somebody who had done what she did. her hands were stained with blood that wouldn't wash off. But Soyeon pushed it into the back of her mind, as far as it would go. ”I'm fine." she lied through her teeth and looked at some of the Pokémon that ventured through the beachside. A Dedenne scampered to a brush in search of food as she watched it. "I, uh, just needed some fresh air. What about you? You've got to be sweating in all of that out here."

( Skipping this round! )

ana fell

The ball containing the Larion clicked, signaling that it had been captured. Soyeon walked over to pick it up and place it into her bag while stopping for a moment at Zev's comment, or was it more of a warning? She honestly couldn't tell with him sometimes. She said nothing and turned around while standing a small ways ahead of Zev. "Both, for my own reasons." she said after a moment of reflection, looking back to her Charizard as it had been busy picking on some of the other Pokemon about. The latest one was a Escavelier that had put up some kind of fight against it, though not enough to avoid its FLAME CHARGE.

"The science behind manmade Pokémon is what drew them to me. I could help the war effort, but I don't imagine I'd be as much use as you would." She replied. Although Soyeon had little idea about what he could specifically do since getting sucked in that wormhole, there was no doubt that Zev could much more of an asset to Rocket than she could ever be. "That doesn't mean I wouldn't contribute though. I'm on a tight leash as it is already..." She said, throwing an empty Pokeball at the downed Escavelier.

Zev Harcourt

Of course it wasn't. Soyeon grimaced at his short response, as if to try and fool herself into thinking that such an idea could be so plausible. Their pursuit through the city streets is soon to come to an end, while the two of them speed directly into a dead end. Soyeon's heart sank into her stomach while the bike came to a screeching halt. She clutched Ignis' Pokeball to her chest and looked to Theo. "What are we going to do now?"

Their answer came in the form of a sudden blackout sweeping through the city. The streets were covered in a blanket of darkness that offered the two of them some time to adjust before her superior gave the order to fight back. She hesitated, even letting out a soft whine, but would nod and call out her Charizard to the fray. "Right." Ignis roared his head back, unleashing a blast of fire at the scene in front of them.

THEO BECKETT

Soyeon held her hands to try and quell the anger that Calpurnia was outputting. She was worried too, but no doubt it was a fraction of what her superior would be doing. But she did have a moment of reflection and actually managed to calm her nerves for a bit while she fished around in her pockets for a device that could show her a photograph of what the girl must have looked like. Meanwhile, Soyeon looked up to see the speck of Ignis flying around overhead. He wasn't coming out in a hurry, which meant that he was just as hard at work as the two of them were. Once Calpurnia did show her phone over to the scientist, Soyeon was greeted to the picture of her face. Zinnia was adorable, that kind of innocence that could capture in time like this and always be able to feel in awe of her.

"Zinnia, huh? She's cute." she commented then smiled up at Calpurnia. Unsure of what to say, her mind was went with the next natural follow up that had slipped past her filter. "Just like her mooooooo..." Shit! Did she almost just say that out loud? And to a woman who was stressed out over losing her daughter?! Her eyes gave away her panic while she tried to reel back in with her idea. The Bulbasaur by her would looked up in confusion before she cleared her throat. "Oooother than that, I think I have enough I can go on. Y-Yeah!" She turned around to deny the woman making eye contact and to hide that faint blush on her cheeks before pointing down the streets around. It would be best if they split up their efforts. Remaining a duo lessened the likelihood of being able to manage enough of a distance to stumble across her.

After a moment of taking a moment to let the color run out of her cheeks, Soyeon spun around to face Calpurnia. "We should split up and cover more ground that way. Here." Soyeon tore off a part of her receipt from an earlier coffee run and then scribbled her number on it before handing it to Calpurnia. "You stick to the general area around the car and the shops here. Maybe she might find her way back. I'll search up and down the streets and call you if I find anything." She said, then hoped the plan sounded fine. If not, remaining together would work, though she'd be worried. "We will find her, Ms. Kubrick. Believe me."

Soyeon began to walk down across the street when her Bulbasaur stopped at a sewer grate. His cry had made his trainer stop in place, as the woman quickly hurried over. "Vacoule?" she asked, looking down at the grate. "What've you found?"



Calpurnia Kubrick

"W-Work, yeah. Work is good." Soyeon repeated after Zev once he had answered her question about what he had been up to since their last foray together. She couldn't really get an angle on whether or not he disliked being with her, much less enjoy it, but Zev was leagues better than a certain somebody that she had the displeasure of meeting with a short while ago. She had been doing her bets to move on and onto better things, but it had been hard all around. Not that Zev really cared about it, or anybody really. It was perhaps the worst part about her life so far. Nobody seemed to give her so much as an afterthought. She pushed the train of thought out of her head and focused on the closing stomping sound nearby.

A Lairon, waltzing through New Mauville freely. Soyeon looked down at her Pokeball and saw Sigfried’s plain as day. No, she couldn't call on him this soon. He wouldn't forgive her for what she had done. Instead, Soyeon plucked her Charizard's pokeball from its resting place and tossed it out. Ignis took form before her as she motioned to the Lairon minding its business. "Weaken it." It stomped off towards the steel type while Soyeon stayed back and then looked to Zev's Pokémon standing out front.

"You never told me you had one of those before." Soyeon said while looking back to Zev. "I've always wanted one of my own, alongside some of the Ultra Beasts and a Genesect." Ignis, meanwhile would make quick work of the Lairon with a FIRE BLAST and step aside from Soyeon to toss a ball at the steel type.

Zev Harcourt

"Uup!" Soyeon yelped and held onto her rider with both arms, terrified of falling off of this ride. The woman's body latched Theo's back for dear life while they turned a corner into the alleyway in this neon and concrete abyss.

"M-Maybe they're just chasing somebody else and we're in the way?" she asked, ducking under a passing sign just in time to not be decapitated. She looked back at the police cars for a moment, as if to try and reasonably assure herself about her statement, though thought better and winced.

"We could try and find something to impede their path."

THEO BECKETT

Her reaction was muted, much like most of her superiors that she had worked with. At the very least, Soyeon was happy that she was more talkative than Zev Harcourt usually was. The woman smiled so happily and wiped her fingers on her lab coat to remove any excess chocolate staining them before walking back to her desk and rummaging around. Books were upturned and flipped through while the lavender haired woman surfed through a sea of paper and ink while her boss would ask for her input regarding why this may be the case. “There was one report that better explains it…No, this is something else. Not this one…Aha!” Dainty fingers plucked a long piece of paper from the desk and pulled it over for Elisabeth to study from. The length of the print had caused the readings to gently float down the floor at both their feet.

These showed numbers and variables alongside charts and graphs of multiple kinds. All of which pointed to a Pokémon having been altered with the normal terrastalization method. "I had one of our scouts go into one of the private rooms and activate their tera orb here, free of outside influence on several of their Pokémon. It was a pain lugging all that equipment upstairs and more, but besides that, the readings I took showed a measurement of terastal energy inside of the Pokémon that we're temporarily calling terastal energy per Pokémon, or “TEPP”. It's measured by taking the size and area that a single Pokémon inhabits and taking the average size of a Tera crystal, then due to having to estimate the origins of the crystal, we have to…"

She babbled on about every finite detail that this mundane measurement could have been altered by, all while the beginnings of an elated grin graced her face. An energy the youth possessed when talking about a subject they were passionate about was painted clear as day on the canvas that was her scientific focus. Soyeon must have realized she was rambling on and on about and stopped herself by clearing her throat. "Er, but more importantly, the average Pokémon who undergoes any kind of method involving a Tera orb has a TEPP rating anywhere from a 0.18 for smaller Pokémon and 0.87 for larger ones. It makes sense, but then when I asked the subject to use only the crystal sample in your hand…" Soyeon flipped the paper on the other side for Elisabeth.

The Area Zero sample had far higher numbers and output than the previous side's readings. The difference was night and day, and Soyeon grinned while pointing out key portions. "The TEPP ratings increased dramatically, almost to 1.73 for something the size of a Cutiefly. That's nearly double of what they had before! The only drawback is that using the crystal originating in Area Zero without a Tera Orb defaults to one of the types the target Pokémon has, so it's not a complete upgrade. More of like...a sidegrade?"

Soyeon sat back down in her chair while looking up at Elisabeth. Beneath her desk, a small Bulbasaur laid napping in a small bed. She sat reverse way and rested her arms on the top of the seat. "As for why that could be, I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps the closer a tera crystal is formed to Area Zero, the more potent it is? Maybe it's something that we haven't discovered yet? For the time being, we just have the facts. That cavern system has a way of using tera crystals without a tera orb and is more dense in that method." She ended her speculation and spun around once in her chair. "What do you think, Ms. Fiorelli? You've had more time out there than I have. Your input matters as much as anyone else's."

Elisabeth Fiorelli

Soyeon stood out in the open route near New Mauville, the scientist having been summoned for an interest check of sorts. So many days ago, she had put her name of candidates interested in learning more about creating one of the few man-made Pokémon that Rocket had been known for creating. It didn't seem like too much of a hassle to create one, without the glaring issue of morality involved. She had frozen at the spot in front of the sign up sheet, but something festered in the back of her mind. A sick curiosity that led her to signing her name away on the paper. So when she walked to Zev out on the route, she was...a bit hesitant about if that was the right decision or not. Regardless, she approached the Beast as warmly as she could.

"It's nice to see you again, Zev. I t-trust you've been well?" She greeted him with her usual affair. But he could most certainly see something was different. Soyeon was more antsy and jumped at the slightest provocation, alongside the woman's now inability to maintain eye contact for longer periods of time, always having to look away if he so much as moved in a certain way. Not that he would have cared, mind you. Soyeon winced at his first words to her in several months' time, focusing on that strange sun symbol. The very same one that had been causing her multiple months' worth of stress and headaches. "Nothing beyond small details and speculation." she exhaled out of the reminder, "I've sent this symbol along to all my colleagues, but even they don't have a clue as to what it could mean or belong to. Even the ones centered in ancient civilizations haven't seen it before. Then the excursions called my attention and I've been swamped with work since."

He tossed out a Type: Null while Soyeon watched it with uncertain, knowing eyes. The symbol of a series of sickening, demented experiments on Pokémon. The draw of them was what drew her here, and Soyeon didn't know if she really had what it took to make one of her own. Yet without guidance of any kind, the woman would have no choice but to walk down the path she was on. "I'm sorry." she said, "What have you been up to?"

Zev Harcourt

Soyeon had opened the door during a fairly mundane day of work. She was at home in the vast labyrinth of Rocket headquarters, shoving his perky nose into her lab work like a good Diglett would. Everything had gone according to plan and without any loose variables interrupting a decent schedule. That is, until a certain woman had made her way down into the laboratories and walked up towards her in particular. When Elisabeth had stopped in front of the other woman, she'd catch Soyeon halfway into a bar of chocolate and mulling over a report that was on its way of being sent to her supervisor.

Her work station was kept relatively organized in a broad sense of the word. A white board beside her desk had notes and diagrams of all kinds drawn out. The latest ones resembled some vague drawings of Area Zero and its parts. It wasn't anything that would get her into an art school, but some printed sheets resembling the anatomy of some Pokémon were taped to the sides. The desk, however, was a different story. Opened books and folders flooded every which way as corners threatened to spill off of the countertop. On top of this layer were five separate remnants of chocolate bars, eaten over the course of a day. Her trash can had two coffee cups inside that had a sickening sweet aroma creeping upwards.

"M-Ms. Fiorelli!" Soyeon stood at attention, with a smudge of chocolate still staining the side of her mouth that her tongue was attempting to work on before it was caught. "Ah-I wasn't expecting company today! Please, make yourself at home!" She was her usual mousey self, but she looked frantic. Flinching at every movement, eyes shifting away every so often before forcing themselves to lock onto hers, even that faint redness to her cheeks.

Once the underboss had gotten comfortable enough to talk business, they got to it. There wasn't really any surprise for Soyeon for somebody to take an interest in the topic, given the current goingons. "Oh, yes. I've been collaborating with some of my peers about our work there. I've been too...busy to go myself, but the items we're getting back are rather eye-opening."

Soyeon led Elisabeth a little bit further into her lab, where a microscope and several large scale photographs were awaiting them. On the mechanical stage was a sample of skin from one of the many Pokémon littered around the region. A hand raised to invite Elisabeth to gaze into the microscope herself as she began to ramble.

"I was originally sent to assist in energy signatures around the area, at least until we were sent back a portion of a deceased Pokémon from Area Zero, similar to Hydreigon. I was sent a portion to see if anything could be..." she paused, as if trying to search for a better word than what had been in the docket, "reused, when I decided to cut into its epidermis. Just like what you see, it's armor. Almost chitinous, but what's more amazing is its ability to respond to external stimuli. I haven't tested it on a live specimen, b-but I can safely speculate that it's a type of living armor. It's ability to regenerate and smooth over any damage sustained is extraordinary. But in more current news..."

She took a quick chunk of chocolate off of the bar in her hands before continuing on, pulling out a chunk of terra crystal that had been gathered from Area Zero. The light reflecting from it briefly flashed in front of both women's face. The weight wasn't overly hefty, but it was a considerable amount for a palm sized sample.

"It's heavier than a typical tera crystal. However, these are even more saturated in terastal energy, to the point where one doesn't even need a Tera Orb or any kind of reagent to utilize the terastallize method, though within reason."

Elisabeth Fiorelli