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His excitement was contagious. She was pleased to see how well the shadow was overtaking the Unown and darkening its hues. The Unown had struggled at first, but it finally seemed to have calmed in his shadow hold. "Brilliant."[break][break]

After its previous outburst, she was sure the Unown had fully taken to the shadow. It seemed to emanate a dark energy on its own, though she had yet to assess its vision and behaviors for herself. She had little interest in what divinity or proximity to it that it might have had (which might be compromised by its shadow status), but she did want it to function as an extra set of eyes. She hoped it would be just as powerful as Cillian's own shadow pokemon and wouldn't be hindered. [break][break]

She got her answer as she stepped closer to it, and it lashed out, trying to strike her eye with a lightning-fast spike of shadow.

TAGS – Cillian Quinn [break]

NOTES – canon connections[break][break]

The judges didn't know what they were talking about. [break][break]

No matter. She had her eyes on the perfect dessert for the final round. It would be citrusy and fresh unlike its closest French counterpart which used vanilla. She got to beating a mixture with citrus peel. This was cooked with whole milk rather than cream. She chose Miltank milk to keep it classic, though she preferred Gogoat as their diet in particular elevated the flavor. She kept things traditional to avoid deviating too greatly.[break][break]

The sugar topping carmelized on top as she finished the cooking component of her dessert. A fresh, citrusy custard was sure to impress the judges. As she placed its rammekin on a clean plate, her mind wandered to what she had been doing months ago. Her excavation efforts in area zero had had mixed results, but she had met many fellow Rockets who'd taught her a lot. That was when she'd first met Cillian Quinn , and now they were going to produce a shadow Unown the moment their schedules aligned. She had few tangible trophies from those expeditions besides a shattered tera crystal, but she had learned plenty.

TAGS – [break]

NOTES – Paldean food: crema catalana[break]sD7Pwbn5[break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"No time to waste," she echoed Lulu's sentiment with a sharpedo-like grin. She had no idea what they'd actually find, but that was true for just about every kind of expedition into Hoenn's wilds and ultra spaces and and and. This region was just a series of scientific impossibilities, and she thrived in it these days. [break][break]

Leaning into it was the best decision she'd made. And aligning with Rocket to borrow the brilliance of its minds was the second best. "Do we need to loop anyone else in on this expedition?" Sometimes, covering their bases with an interdisciplinary approach would lead to the best results, but given the nature of the exploration, it could also be better to just have the experts involved like themselves.

TAGS – Lulu Flint [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

It was a good question. "Mauville is such a hotspot of activity and commerce. It's easy to watch and see something of interest." Her Sigilyph went off the path to harass a Florges with hypnosis. "The gym is important. The lapdog of the League. His speed and his collection of pokemon make him a valuable target to invite on a long vacation." Unown could gather relevant information towards that. [break][break]

"Ultimately, I am a little surprised we have comparatively no interest in this city. It feels more valuable than some of the other towns that have floated around the office as points of interest. But logistics is not my headache." She would go where they sent her. "It is probably a hard place to hold," she confessed as she thought of it longer, "but I feel they would have no choice but to load forces here to protect it given the human cost." And the cityscape made its infrastructure easy to damage and difficult to repair. But she was focused on resource draining the League more than dominating Hoenn in this hypothetical.

TAGS – THEO BECKETT [break]

NOTES – dw / completely randomized types / catching florges[break][break]

Ameena was almost falling asleep during her meditation when she heard a heavy thud. Her heart rate skyrocketed and she was on her feet, surveying the area. A little carbink lied on the ground beside where she had just been seated. "Wh-?" She thought, for a moment, that it was dead. But she could see small movements and it became clear carbink was sleeping. Musharna's mist had gotten to it while it was minding its business. It was amusing, and it might have also explained why she had nearly snoozed herself.

TAGS – [break]
NOTES – rock/fairy/dragon - CATCH

Ameena lounged with Musharna floating above her somewhere. Ameena had hiked up here to get a break from the monotony of her lab. She had begun to feel trapped and irritable because of it, and her staff had kept some distance from her. She needed to the time out to regulate her emotions, and Musharna had clearly been needing it to. Musharna had been trapped in the same labs running tests with Ameena and practicing with her dream mist. [break][break]

It was a pleasant change of pace to meditate by the path while Musharna did some floating equivalent of frolicking, though it wouldn't be long until wildlife started to harass them both.

TAGS – [break]
NOTES – rock/fairy/dragon

This time, she's in a test tube. [break][break]

She sees a dozen people sleeping, hooked up to a mist concoction of her own design, dreaming. She beats on the glass to break it. She can see from the readings by each set that their heart rates are all plummeting. The concoction, it's wrong. It's killing. It's convinced the mind its dying and the body is listening. [break][break]

She cries out for her pokemon to stop it. They cannot hear her. She cannot be heard. [break][break]

Flat line. Twelve of them. [break][break]

She watches as their brain activity fights, fights, and fails. It's not even that the people lying in the beds are so important - though they are, most of them - but that they have encountered so many otherworldly elements that their value was utterly wasted in this study, in this laying-the-groundwork experiment. That she's burned a solid route towards navigating the dream realm, where she could navigate to one where these people were alive. Where she would be safe. Because she certainly gave up all protections the second her admins passed. [break][break]

And the tube around her doesn't even suffocate her. She will be alive when the others come looking.

d r e a m – S 2[break][break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

She was very surprised to hear about the stardust incident. She'd have to follow-up on that later. If there was a later, for her. [break][break]

She played with her hands as he spoke, uncharacteristically unsure of herself. "I believe your interaction with Cresselia is what granted you awareness during that night in June. You- well, you do not remember it. You will. I believe Cresselia is also the reason the event is processed so deeply in your subconscious. Your brain activity indicated a deep capacity for internalization. I cannot speak to it being a quality of yours innately or something specific to dreams that has come from Cresselia. There are too many factors to even figure it out because so few people have interacted with Cresselia that a control group would. Um. Nevermind."[break][break]

She was getting caught up in it. She had so much research ahead of her, and she didn't... she didn't have the opportunity to pursue any of it further. Lulu would have to pick up the pieces. [break][break]

Porygon floated in. "I can show you." She pulled an HDMI from her laptop and let Porygon's light magnetism pull the other end to contact its surface, allowing a transfer of data. "In June," she started as she clicked around to open Porygon's data sheets, "you were... taken. No, let me back up further. Porygon here has a program that operates off of Census data to pull possible subjects for a sleep study. Those are what I perform in my lab beneath AbCon."[break][break]

Deep breaths. "Are you with me, still?"

TAGS – Tempest Quinn [break]
NOTES –