Session 103

The party wakes, all at once suddenly as if by some silent timer. It is an hour past dawn, and they are scattered around their suite as if by a miniature tornado, though both trainers and pokemon are fully recovered from the prior day. None of them are in their beds, and their beds have not been slept in.
Memories of the prior night are unclear, more glitchy than the usual fuzzy. There was a small feast, of sky and blue and flight, and more signs that not only was Esme's guess about the Chansey correct but Nurse Joy was mildly trolling to go along with it.
There is a knock on the door.
Linnea: "Mmm…huh? Hello?"
Max Thorn straightens up from his repose on…the floor next to the couch? Huh.
Haley: "Heeey, sleepyheads! Tim and Sands want to get going soon if you're awake."
Sam Spade: "We're awake."
Esme apparently rested leaning against a wall. "Hrm."
Sam Spade: "….Linnea, why is your head on my leg?"
Esme snerks. "I don't remember much of yesterday, but I could gather a few reasons."
Max Thorn gets to his feet and starts packing things up.
Haley: "Well, pack up and let's get going, then. Fiza asked them to extend a special version of Route 31 just for you. It's almost ready."
Linnea: "Because you're comfortable," Linnea mumbles.
Sam Spade: "…Haley, why does that statement fill me with nerves?"
Sam Spade sits up, pats Linnea on the head, then pulls her leg free.
Esme: "Special version, huh. Not forebo-" Esme starts vibrating. "Uh."
Linnea rolls up to standing position.
Linnea: "Concern."
Esme: "Oh right!" She digs in her bag, pulling out the Egg from before. It's definitely percolating.
The green cell layer has turned, purple though, and now it has a very orange smiling face. "Soloo~"
Linnea: "Oh! That's cute!"
Esme: "Perfect!"
[OOC] WC GM: And not even phone-shaped.
Esme: "Guess I'll have to trade someone out for a bit…I'll go deposit Alexis before we head out."
The pokemon center is just downstairs.
Esme goes to take care of that, while everyone recovers from whatever last night was.
Nurse Joy is not present, but a togekiss is, scurrying back and forth filling out paperwork with pens gripped in both of his (you guess, following the odds) wings.
The togekiss takes one look at Esme and points to a computer on the left (from his perspective) end of the desk.
Esme boots up the console to make her deposit. "Alright 'lexi, you take a breather while I look after…" She thinks for a moment. "…Ugene, here."
Through the windows it can be seen that Sky City definitely took a beating yesterday, but is already starting to rebuild. Construction crews are everywhere, likely including many people and pokemon whose main job is not construction but who have been pressed into service since they would otherwise have little to do today.
[OOC] WC GM: Is there anything else you wish to do in Sky City before hitting the road?
[OOC] Sam Spade: Not here
[OOC] Linnea: nope
[OOC] Esme: Nah
The temporary route looks like it would be glowing dimly at night, but the sunlight washes that out. It is hard to tell if this is some sort of hard light, or actual material like plastic or glass. Regardless, only a distortion in the air, and chevron-shaped white pulses travelling from Sky City down into the jungle far away, advertise there be
WC GM: ing a solid surface stretching from Sky City straight to Skitter Jungle. If it was not downhill it looks like it would take the usual few days to cross on foot, but it is a downward and constant angle.
Sam Spade: "Mildly terrifying."
Tim and Sands are at its top, off to one side. Sands keeps trying to swipe chunks from it, but his claws pass through to no avail. Tim is rubbing a finger along its lip.
Esme: "Who *builds* these?"
Haley, having accompanied the party here, shrugs. "Who built Sky City? I'm afraid to ask."
Max Thorn: "Best to let sleeping dogs lie."
Haley: "This doesn't get used much. Apparently this is the first time it's been on since the invasion."
Haley: "And it'll turn off once we're there."
Tim stands up. "So the obvious question is, skis or sled?"
Haley: "That…is not the first question in my mind."
Tim: "What? How can you see this and NOT want to zoom down it as fast as you can?!?"
Haley: "Be…cause I want to live?" She turns a mild pleading expression to the party.
Linnea just shrugs and grins.
Sam Spade: "I'm with Linnea on this one."
Esme: "It'll be just like snowboarding!"
Esme: "Or surfing a spirit wave. Probably safer."
Max Thorn: "There are far worse ways to go."
Max Thorn: "This is way less harrowing than the death-sea, let's be honest here."
Max Thorn: "…I still can't believe that that's a thing I can say with a straight face."
Sam Spade: "And we do have a few pokemon able to catch us."
Tim: "Yeah! There's not even a little death mixed in with this ride."
Haley: "W-well…ooo….kay, if you're sure."
Sam reaches down to feel the sides of the super-slide. Is there anything to keep us from sliding off other than sheer will?
The slide appears nearly frictionless. It should be possible to steer back toward the center if one is heading off to the side, but there are no rails.
Tim: "Alright, let's get to it!" He jumps onto the slide, plants both feet, and begins sliding down, wobbling a bit but staying upright.
Sands curls into a ball and follows Tim, soon passing him.
Max Thorn looks mildly nonplussed, but follows Tim's lead.
Haley just stands back and watches for the moment.
[OOC] WC GM: Acrobatics, Combat, or similar "stay on your feet" check.
[OOC] Sam Spade: Focus work?
Linnea starts hurtling downward!
Linnea rolled up 4d6: 17 (1 5 6 5) (Athl)
Max Thorn rolled up 6d6: 21 (6 1 4 4 2 4) (Combat)
[OOC] WC GM: Sure
Sam Spade rolled up 6d6: 20 (4 1 2 1 6 6) (Focus)
Esme rolled up 6d6: 25 (4 5 4 5 2 5) (Athl)
Linnea is a bit wobbly like Tim. Sam, Max, and Esme have no such problems.
Haley follows the group, managing a bellyflop and unable to get back on her feet. She manages not to scream, though her expression gives away her terror.
Sam Spade: "Malta? Can you help Haley?"
Gravity does all the work, and soon the party is whipping through the air down to Skitter Jungle. Something is apparently pushing a tunnel of air with the party, as there is only mild air resistance.
Malta rolled up 5d6+2: 23 (2 4 6 3 6)
Malta is easily able to grab Haley and set her back on her unsteady feet.
[OOC] WC GM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpn-o9n-cs seems appropriate BGM, especially given Malta's involvement
Miles pass in minutes. The ground passing at less than blur-like speeds is a reminder of how far up the party is, though that altitude is slowly coming down.
That said, even the ground lowers - hills to either side descending toward the jungle canopy ahead. Below, the traditional Route 31 can be seen - no one upon it, but the route itself is still there for when normality returns.
Haley: "So, uh, does, umm, anyone know how we're going to stop?"
Sam Spade: "Um. No."
Sam Spade: "We hope that great-grandfather had a plan for that."
Max Thorn: "…Hopefully it's not 'have Malta pick us off one by one'."
Haley: "That's a better plan than 'crash'!"
Max Thorn: "Yes, but it's a bit rude to overwork a pokémon that way."
Esme: "I don't think 'tuck and roll' is going to cut it, though."
Sam Spade: "And there's the whole timing issue. We're moving pretty fast. I'm not sure if Malta is fast enough to set one of us down, even at the speeds she usually sets me down, and get back to everyone else…"
Max Thorn: "That's my biggest concern with that plan, yes."
Sands has pulled well ahead of the group by now, and is nearing what looks like the end of the ramp. Something moves on the forest floor, a series of small dots - as far as can be seen from back here - lining up to greet him.
Tim: "Is that a…welcoming committee?"
Sam Spade: "I hope not. I hope it's a braking system."
Sam Spade: "Because a welcoming committee serving as an impromptu braking system would be in for an unpleasant surprise."
[OOC] WC GM: Perception to try to peer close and get more detail, especially if you have binoculars or the like.
Max Thorn rolled up 5d6: 15 (6 3 1 2 3) (Perception)
Sam Spade rolled up 5d6: 23 (6 6 3 5 3) (same)
Max Thorn squints…
Max can tell the dots are pokemon of some kind. Sam can barely but definitely tell they are pinecos.
Max Thorn: "… Pokemon?"
Sam Spade: "Um. Wasn't there something about exploding pinecos here?"
Linnea: "…"
Sam Spade: "Because those are definitely pinecos."
Max Thorn: "Well, we /were/ told we'd be facing pineco grenades eventually. I wasn't expecting it to be this soon, though."
Sam Spade: "I think this is going to be a really painful welcoming committee. And we need to figure out how to brake."
[OOC] WC GM: Giving him any warning?
[OOC] Sam Spade: OH RIGHT SANDS IS IN FRONT
Sam Spade: "SANDS! WATCH OUT FOR EXPLODING PINECOS!"
Sam's warning comes just in time. Sands leaps - and manages to crest right over the suddenly-exploding greeting line.
[OOC] WC GM: https://youtu.be/u2W1Wi2U9sQ?t=184
What happens next can be summarized as "pinball" . Sands, curled up, bounces from one target to another, many of them unseeable from this distance, surrounded by and sometimes touching off explosions.
In the light and smoke and dust, it is impossible to see if the bridge still ends in the ground now.
Max Thorn: "… Um."
Haley: "If we're going to brake, nowwouldbeagoodtimeplease!"
Sam Spade: "Max, Linnea? Any ideas?"
Esme: "Um um… Oh! Lin! You have blue shards, right?"
Linnea: "Yeah…?!"
Linnea: "You want me to wash 'em out?"
Esme: "Wash out or wind out, either or! If we both do it, should give us enough cushion!"
Linnea: "Wash 'em away then." She scrambles for a shard. "On three. One…two…"
Esme: "Three!"
[OOC] WC GM: Aerobraking using blue shards? Occult checks if you please.
[OOC] WC GM: Or Tech Ed.
[OOC] Sam Spade: Turning the base of the ramp into a splash pool, I think.
Linnea rolled up 6d6+2: 28 (6 3 5 6 4 2)
[OOC] Esme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh2L-J9j1xM
Esme rolled up 6d6+1: 22 (6 5 2 2 5 1)
Light and smoke and dust soon get hosed down with water, enough getting onto the slide to slowly decelerate the party before running into the big bubble at the end.
When everything settles, the party is strewn about like debris, a platoon of pokemon and trainers in makeshift militaryesque uniforms boggling at them. Sands is up a tree looking warily down at all the water.
The bridge flickers and retracts back toward Sky City.
Linnea: "…"
Linnea: "What the fuck just happened."
Esme coughs. "We lived!"
Haley is kissing the soggy ground.
Max Thorn oofs as he sits back up. "We do. But what's all this?"
Sam Spade: "You remember what Fiza said about starting up a new resistance movement?"
As if on cue, the local trainers produce an assortment of rifles, and aim them more or less in the party's direction. Even a few of the pokemon are thus armed.
Max Thorn: "I suppose this'll be it, then."
Sam Spade: "Yeah, that's them."
Sam Spade: "Ah…any thoughts on how not to get shot?"
Esme: "Maybe bring up Fiza?"
Linnea: "…"
Sam Spade: "FIZA SENT US PLEASE DON'T SHOOT!"
RebelTrainer: "Sure she did. I suppose you even raided her safe for badges. Don't you know she's dead?"
Sam Spade: "I'm not sure she *can* die."
Sam Spade: "I'm starting to wonder if she's Mew."
Esme: "Yeah she was in that thing for like, how long?"
RebelTrainer: "In what thing?"
Esme: "If she's got the Bird Trio on her side, she's probably got some longevity thing going on."
Esme: "…Do we have some longevity thing going on?"
Max Thorn: "We've made it this far, Esme."
Sam Spade: "Uh, Stormderp grabbed her because that damn rat pichu thought there was too few of him and too many ladies, and stuffed her in a power source to run a pichubot assembly line."
To the best of the party's knowledge, the journey has only lasted a few months so far, not centuries.
Linnea: "We'd go back and show you, but uh…"
Linnea: "Honestly it was a small miracle we got -here-."
RebelTrainer: "A…pichubot assembly…"
Another voice calls from back in the jungle. "Sir! Receiving a coded communique from our agents in Sky City! We don't know the cipher for this one."
RebelTrainer: "We're in the middle of something. Can it wait?"
Sam Spade: "Um. What's the point of a coded message if you don't know the cipher?"
OtherVoice: "We can't tell. The message is, quote, 'It's raining pichubots!', end quote."
Sam Spade: "…Ah."
Sam Spade: "Yeah, that's not coded."
The apparently lead rebel trainer facepalms.
OtherVoice: "Not…coded?"
Max Thorn: "Some halfwit outfitted Fiza's former office into a factory and then made a bunch of pichubots. They're tumbling out of that factory right now."
OtherVoice: "Ah. I'll relay orders to gather them up and retool them. They could be useful munitions!"
RebelTrainer: "Yeah, you go and…do that."
The rebel trainer looks over the party. "You seem calm about that."
Max Thorn pops open his badge case. "Do you think we shouldn't be?"
RebelTrainer: "I don't know. The only ones I know of with that many badges are all Team Jaeger." The trainer - shadowed and androgynous, the party is not sure if the trainer is male or female - swivels gun in Tim's direction. "And that boy looks familiar."
Max Thorn puts his badges away. "Cos he's the only trainer-minder who /hasn't/ led his trainers into death-traps or pushed them into no-win situations where the only out was going home."
Esme: "Also, if we were Team Jaeger, would we be trying to reason with you?"
Max Thorn: "Which, once I find the individuals who *have* done that…nobody's gonna be finding those bodies."
RebelTrainer: "Heh. You." The trainer points to Max, while holstering rifle. "I like you. And I assure you, *that* work has already begun. Alright, everyone, I trust them for now."
The rebels holster their weapons and begin to disperse.
Linnea: "Sheesh…"
The apparent leader comes forth. What the party assumed was shadowed features turns out to actually be dusky Dojjian complexion. He holds his hand forth. "Esa. Fiza is my sister."
Esa: "I want to believe you, that she is still alive. But paranoia is life out here, you understand."
Sam Spade: "We understand. She sent us to help."
Sam Spade very carefully does not say who they are meant to help, or how.
Esa: "Of course she did."
Esa: "But you are just some trainers, with pokemon. We have warm bodies - not that we'd turn away more."
WC GM: <Esa> "Tell me, how would you overthrow Team Jaeger?"
Sam Spade pats Esa on the cheek. "Of course, of course."
[OOC] WC GM: *swap those lines
Sam Spade frowns. "Well, right now…we still need some information."
Sam Spade: "You see, we don't know what will happen if we remove the crystal bullet from Moth's brain."
Esa: "Oh? Simple, he will lose his puppet."
Tim is trying to get Sands down from the tree, and does not appear to have heard that.
Sam Spade: "Yes, but what would that *do*? Would that leave a power vacuum for Iggy to expand into?"
Sam Spade: "Because I have to say, while there are things I wouldn't do to punch Iggy in the face, most of those are things I wouldn't do *period*."
Max Thorn: "We've mostly been traveling the region and solving problems. We've reopened Dojji, for instance."
Esa: "Power vacuum? No, it would force Moth to accept who he is."
Sam Spade: "So Moth would still be the leader of Team Jaeger?"
Esa: "Though…the result of *that* might leave a power vacuum. In the literal sense. Team Jaeger's officers…" He makes a collapsing motion. "…black hole. I don't know his powers too well."
Esa: "I doubt he would take it well, whatever the result."
Max Thorn: "I'd say I wouldn't mind if it solved the Ignacia problem, but…I'd like to square *that* account personally."
Sam Spade: "Well, there's only one way to know the truth of that. If we can't get anyone else to take that bullet out, we'll have to do it. And if there's a chance it means a very angry MewTwo, we'll have to do it ourselves so we can mitigate the consequences."
Esa: "If she has any sense, and she does, she'd try to stay the heck away from Moth when he snapped."
Sam Spade: "Yeah, Iggy is sharp. Annoyingly. And crazy. And mean, and vicious, and it'd be hoping too much to think that Moth would get rid of her for us."
Esa: "If you want to contain the damage, I'd say your best bet would be a master ball - if you can find one."
Sam Spade grimaces.
Max Thorn: "I mean, yes. But that's a brute-force approach."
Sam Spade: "The trip through Gaela has me a little concerned about the ethics of that. But it's a solid plan B, at least."
Esa: "Of course, first you will need to get in to see them both. And that will be…complicated."
Sam Spade: "Given that Ho-oh and Lugia are currently raging against Amoda Headquarters? Yeah, probably."
Esa: "I had heard. Doubtless they know the two leaders of Team Jaeger are inside."
WC GM: <Esa> "Well. Perhaps you can help with a shorter term goal first."
Sam Spade: "I think they're more concerned with Iggy. She's the one who put Ho-oh in a primitive pokeball that inflicted pain over time, then lost him."
Esa: "Tell me, how would you liberate Skitter Jungle?"
Sam Spade: "That's a very good question. What's the state of Skitter Jungle?"
Esa: "Occupied, as is all of Amoda."
Sam Spade: "Yes, but there's a difference between 'occupied by lip service' and 'currently being systematically destroyed.'"
Esa: "Team Jaeger patrols the city. We control the forest. Occasionally we fight."
Esa: "The buildings still stand, for now. They are more useful to Team Jaeger intact than destroyed."
Sam Spade: "What of the people who live in the city?"
Esa: "They live. Fiza asked that we keep fatalities to a minimum, and we have so far. Even among Team Jaeger, we have not yet actually killed any. I think they may be under similar orders, as we have yet to lose anyone - though we have had a few comas and disabled."
Linnea: "Do you know of anything or anyone that can be used as leverage?"
Max Thorn: "…I could take a look at the casualties, I guess. Shaymin's power can aid that much, at least."
Esa: "The quality of their life, though…there have been few exports since the occupation, other than in Jaeger-driven vehicles. They trade liberty for safety - you look like you would know what that entails."
Sam Spade: "Seeing as how we traded safety for liberty…yeah."
Esa: "Hmm…unfortunately our intel is not that detailed. They know us by now, but perhaps you could infiltrate and identify targets."
Esa: "You have medical expertise? Come, I will show you to our clinic." He begins walking back into the jungle.
Max Thorn: "Of a sort." He follows Esa.
[OOC] WC GM: Anyone mind if I cut it here? It's almost time anyway.
[OOC] Max Thorn: Works for me.
Linnea: "I can't say I'm good at stealth, but I can civ it up pretty convincingly."
[OOC] Linnea: Sure!

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License