Team ISP (Specific Impulse). This Team, Unlike Many Others, Does Not Want To Get Anything On Earth -

Fight (mini-fic)

BOOTING UP...

BOOTING UP...

ISF9 ROBOTICS SUB-DIVISION (424 AFE)

CMBTRN MK2 BCS REVISION 023

CPU: CALCUTEC HEXALITH CLUSTER CPU E0812

LOADER V2.1

EXEC VERSION 32.43

64 GDUNITS RAM SYSTEM

20 GDUNITS FREE

50 TDUNITS PRIMARY DATA STORAGE

38 TDUNITS FREE

EXTERNAL DATA STORAGE FOUND AND CONNECTED (ISF9 ROBOTICS DIVISION, B-BOX MK51)

LOAD ROM(1): GENERAL.OS

LOAD COMPLETE

INITIALIZING...

COMMENCING SELF-DIAGNOSTIC PROCEDURES...

MOTIVE SYSTEMS: WALKER, BIPEDAL / QUADRUPEDAL / HEXAPEDAL, DIGITIGRADE, OPERATIONAL

GYROS AND ACCELEROMETERS OPERATING NORMAL

MANIPULATORS: FOUR, FIVE-FINGERED, OPERATIONAL

SENSORY SYSTEMS: ADVANCED TARGETING SENSOR COMPLEX, ADVANCED RECON SENSOR COMPLEX, THREE GENERAL AWARENESS SENSOR COMPLEXES

POWER SOURCE: TWO INTEGRAL ULTRA-HIGH DENSITY RECHARGEABLE ARCANE ENERGY BATTERIES (ALL 100% CHARGED), ONE REMOVABLE ULTRA-HIGH DENSITY RECHARGEABLE ARCANE ENERGY BATTERY (100% CHARGED), MULTI-PURPOSE POWER CONVERTER

ADDITIONAL SYSTEMS: OPTICAL CLOAK - READY

WEAPONS: ASSAULT BEAM CANNON (POSSIBLE MODES - ASSAULT BEAM / ASSAULT PULSE), TWO CUTTER BLADES, TWO GRAPPLING HOOK LAUNCHERS (36 METERS, SMART HOOK)

VOCALIZER OPERATIONAL

OPERATION START.

Combatron found itself in a transport container. Considering unusual position and the fact, that startup sequence was initiated by the systems of container, which were very low on energy, some emergency situation happened, and now machine was to analyze it, find the way to humans and complete the mission in protecting them.

Because of how container was locked and lock itself was inoperable, combatron decided to take a way of force.

Machine deployed two cutter blades from the upper limbs, activated the blade enhancing system, enshrouding them in clouds of destructive arcane energy, then simply cut the container open, like a tin can, threw what remained of door away and jumped out, prepared to take on hostile targets.

Strangely enough, none were found nearby, and, apparently, the container itself was lying in some forest in the Kalos region. Combatron, after seven seconds of analysis, decided to move out to north, “hoping” to eventually find a human settlement. One activation of cloaking system later, and everything became silent.

Machine noticed the desolate land straight ahead. Since the arcane energy detectors were picking up some very strange readings, combatron resorted to quadrupedal movement in order to maximize speed. Right now, the only combat protocol in the robot’s mind was simple - “protect the civilians and eliminate hostile targets at all costs”.

Jan saw, how Yveltal prepared the Oblivion Wing, how the orb between wings and tail grew... and how, suddenly, bright blue beam from somewhere hit it and caused it to explode, cancelling the attack and throwing the Destruction Pokemon into uncontrollable tail-spin.

- Citizens, this is combatron robotic military unit speaking! - sounded from roughly the beam’s point of origin. When he and Aila turned their heads to it, they saw a six-limbed metallic construct dropping the invisiblity camouflage and swiftly turning cylindrical “head”, still slightly opened, like a backwards flower (authors note: like this), and glowing faint blue, from one side to another, searching for something.

- Citizens, I, as a most powerful military unit here, order you to evacuate at once to increase your chances of survival!

Jan wanted to object, but the thing somehow predicted it and continued:

- Failure to fulfill the given order will result in your death sentence with immediate execution!

- Let’s go, Aila, I don’t think we’ll make a difference in this battle, - motor-mouthed scared Jan, placing girl on the back of his Gogoat and setting a course for somewhere sufficiently far away from here. The metallic-looking six-limbed thing nodded in approvement and quickly jumped forward, saying something to barely-stabilized Yveltal.

- You are facing Combatron-class assault robot. Death is inevitable, - said the machine, before it cloaked and started to charge the Assault Beam Cannon. Of course, the chargeup sequence itself partially compromised cloaking field and took more time in stealth mode, but right now, it did not matter to arcane robot - the only thing that mattered was the success of mission, and even in the current state, it was cloaked enough to disrupt hostile’s ability to aim effectively.

As much as machine would’ve liked, the Yveltal didn’t hover in one place - rather, it started to use general aerial attack patterns, similar to those, used by the most Flying-type Pokemon.

The first attack was saturation Razor Wind, directed at general location of the combatron. Though it, thanks to spread, barely scratched the paintwork on armor, it still made a disturbance to the cloaking field. Thankfully, combatron was able to cling to a rocky cliff and avoid being detected.

The next attack was another Oblivion Wing, targeted at escaping civilians. Because they were executing order to evacuate and combat protocols ordered so, machine was forced to prematurely fire the Assault Beam Cannon, exposing itself, in order to cancel the hostile’s attack and allow non-combatants to pull away safely.

The third was Dark Pulse, directed almost precisely at the combatron. Machine instantly disengaged the gripping system, allowing itself to fall off the cliff to avoid the powerful attack.

- No quarter! - replied robot, switching the Assault Beam Cannon to Assault Pulse mode and quickly sending two small beams of energy in hostile Pokemon. Yveltal shuddered, as streams of destructive arcane energy burned holes in his flesh, but continued the pursuit for elusive machine, furious in how it managed to allow the prey to escape and was trying to take the Destruction Pokemon down, barely noticing, that combatron was slowly luring it away from the human settlement.

The battle was raging on for the second hour already, with no immediate winner in sights. While the first part of the combatron’s plan - lure the hostile away from the civilians - was a total success, the robot still needed to defeat it for the sake of a world’s safety.

As usual, the Destruction Pokemon was commencing strafing runs with either Oblivion Wing or Hyper Beam one after another, sometimes adding Dark Pulse or Razor Wind for coverage, while the combatron was attacking it with Assault Pulses and, sometimes, trying to hit it with Assault Beam (not often, though, since it was draining batteries like no tomorrow).

Machine registered, how close Yveltal was passing to it this time, and took a chance.

Left lower hand raised, grappling hook launched. While recoil was pretty harsh, it was taken in account during aiming sequence.

Unfortunately, the hostile Pokemon made a sharp turn, evading the hook. Combatron instantly engaged the hoist, retracting the hook along with a rope back into the launcher, and swiftly jumped out of the way of another attack.

- The fight is already over, monster! - boldly announced machine, activating the Assault Beam Cannon and firing several small shots, trying to damage the wings and force the hostile Pokemon to land, where it would sever the spinal cord and slice the brain apart with the cutter blades.

It was a fifth hour of the fight, which continued to rage on even at night.

Both of the combatants were on their last reserves. Yveltal’s body was already overtaxed and overheated, while the combatron had exhausted two batteries, meant mostly for supplying weapons with energy, and was running on the third one only.

Combatron noticed, how the Yveltal, tired as he was, prepared to fire partially-charged Oblivion Wing at the machine. Unable to use the Assault Beam Cannon to cancel out the hostile attack, robot crossed the deployed cutter blades before itself and reconfigured their energy cover, extending it like some sort of a shield.

The impact of a Flying-type attack, capable of nearly-instantly draining life energy from other lifeforms, dissipated on the impromptu deflector, but it was at price - overloaded blade enhancing system malfunctioned, leaving the blades useless and damaging the servos of outer arms. However, it left Yveltal, who passed a little too low, open, and machine took that chance.

Combatron jumped with all power it’s servos were able to provide and fired both of the hooks, hitting the Yveltal this time and quickly pulling itself to him. Barely, but arcane robot still somehow managed to get a decent grip on the Legendary embodiment of death. The upper limbs, which, originally, housed deadly cutter blades, were out of commision, weapon energy supply was flat, but machine still had something left.

Barely clenching to the feathered skin, arcane robot has managed to move itself to the head of the Yveltal. Blue eyes of the Legendary Pokemon of Destruction, the Death Embodied, intersected with several lifeless sensors of the most advanced killer machine in the world, neither of them bearing any trace of empathy or sorrow.

Combatron, despite Destruction Pokemon desperately trying to shake it off, had finally alinged itself with the part of beast’s skull, where the brain was located, and steadied the joints.

Energy source switched, power rerouted. The head-mounted Assault Beam Cannon started opening like a backwards flower once again, howling chargeup sound getting higher with each millisecond passing and cannon itself glowing blue brighter and brighter.

Combatron registered, how fast the energy from the main power supply was draining, but machine couldn’t care less about it - if the beam makes contact, it’ll be worth it, even if it’ll mean total cessation of the combatron’s operation.

Yveltal understood, how the thin-limbed metallic thing, despite all of the damage, started preparing the most powerful beam attack, directed right at his head, and he couldn’t do anything about it. For the first time in untold millenia, the Destruction Pokemon was not angry, not annoyed, not furious, but outright terrified. And then everything broke loose.

Monstrously powerful beam erupted from the energy cannon. Even the skin of the Legendary, capable of shrugging off any but strongest attacks, could not stand in the path of focused destructive arcane energy of such a magnitude.

The bright blue beam easily atomized the skin and tore through the skull, completely destroying the brain, and then continued along the neck and spine, which were “lucky” to happen to be in the way of beam after the Yveltal’s attempts to throw the combatron off. In less than four seconds, a decent parts of head, back and tail of the Destruction’s embodiment ceased to exist.

The wretched corpse of the Yveltal, along with powerless husk of combatron, fell into the lake, dead machine still clinging on what remained of Destruction Pokemon.

When two dead deathbringers impacted the water’s surface, combatron’s powerless servos easily gave up, as it was thrown away from the Yveltal’s body, which skipped across the surface a single time, like a stone.

After both of them sunk to a considerable depth, Destruction Pokemon’s true ability has finally kicked in, starting to absorb life energy of everything around (which was not that much) and trying to fold what remained of the body into the Cocoon form. It’ve succeeded... mostly, because sheer scale of damage, done to the body, and insufficient amount of absorbed life force prevented normal full-scale resurrection sequence from taking place. It has required a fresh start, start from the very zero, start from anew.

On the bottom of the lake, inside what would normally be an Yveltal, folded into a Cocoon form, old life, which was to be eternal, has perished for good and entirely new one was born. It was smaller and weaker by magnitude of several orders, but, at least, it was.

Past of the future, future of the past...

Interlude. Different Points.

Soris Region, near Chernoholmsk, Imperial Rocket Factory #2.

Nikolai walked along the assembly line, checking the sounding rockets, before they'll get packed up, loaded into containers and delivered to the Zemlino Space Center.

Three months ago, the Rayquaza has destroyed both of the space stations in orbit, killed twelve cosmonauts and reduced the satellite groups of both Soris Empire and the Pokemon Nation to pretty much nothing. And that's not counting the destruction of anything, that goes higher than troposphere, such as research drones or high-altitude planes.

Since then, the Imperial Space Program took a hit, but, thanks to the personal support of the Empress, stayed strong. Right now, their primary priority was set to the atmospheric research, so, they've commissioned several hundreds of the modified A-100 sounding rockets - the fastest rockets in the world, capable of 100g of acceleration!

Speaking of which...

"... Why are those sounding rockets like this?" the worker thought, doing a check on the hull. "No ablative protection, which is very strange, considering their accelerations and resulting ram heating in the atmosphere, unusual science payload adapter, attitude jets instead of steering fins and, for what it looks like, radio command flight guidance system…"

"Surprised by how those rockets look?" asked him superior, who approached the worker undetected. "I'm also surprised by this order. It'll make sense, if they'll be used in space…"

"But what for?"

"... I don't know. And I think we better keep low and silent about it. They didn't double the payment and order me to increase your salaries for nothing."

Hoenn Region, Sootopolis.

"...And for the ending of the "Zap Rangers", we've planned…" TV fell silent.

"Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. Over and over again," said Valencia, switching the set off via button on the device itself and walking to the kitchen.

Ever since the Rayquaza got crazy and destroyed most of the stuff in orbit, then began a stratospheric blockade, pure chaos ensued.

In a lot of places cults sprung to life, calling, that the end of the world was near. Some of them had committed mass suicides, some - went into riots, allowing the looters of all sorts to flourish, some went into self-constructed shelters… it was true insanity.

And, as a Cheri Berry on top of that cake, many book and comic writers, along with producers of TV shows and so on, decided to tell everyone their plans on ending their works. The newspapers and networks were pretty much flooded with them. Valencia was even afraid to imagine, how much money they were getting from those exclusive interviews.

"Still nothing good?" a question sounded from the kitchen.

"Still nothing good," responded the woman, entering the room. In one of the chairs, a young man sat. If not for a slightly ragged look of his face, it would've been impossible to tell, that he was, actually, a Draconid.

"Damn. Gonna lay low for a few more weeks, I guess?" said Damien. His name was quite unusual for a member of this tribe… but it really helped him to get to his Sootopolian friend for a safe hiding, when the pogroms started. Even though, officially, Hoenn government had nothing against the Draconids, the fact, that those people worshipped Rayquaza, was enough of a trigger to allow humans, driven to hysterical paranoia by the acts of recently-resurfaced Sky High Pokemon and some medias, which were happily exploiting those events, to near-instantly resort to the unprovoked and indiscriminate violence. Even though most of the Draconids had powerful Pokemon with them, it often just made crazed people to switch to the swarming tactics, mixed with dirty fighting. Even great Draconid combatants weren't able to stand against fifty normal trainers and some more non-trainers at once, especially, when those people were specifically targeting the Draconid in question and going for the injuries at least.

"Of course," replied Valencia. She wondered, why the news networks weren't showing anything about Soris now and how they, with their different culture, reacted to what has happened several months ago.

Soris Region, near Zemlino, VAB #3

"Contact zone reached," said the computer system in the cabin of the overhead crane. The slightly aged man threw a quick look at the screen in cabin, at the payload, at the destination, then gently shifted the left control stick, activating the hoist and lowering the turret with railgun, suspended on the crane's hook, to the workers below. Right now, the air conditioning system of the Vertical Assembly Building was being repaired and the clouds started to build up inside. It wasn't raining yet and most of the equipment was water-proofed for this very reason, but the condensation on the glass windows of the cabin was getting annoying for the operator, since it forced him to mostly rely on the instruments.

"Klim, the break is starting about now! Get down here!" sounded from the comm system. Klim Goncharenko, a very experienced crane operator - probably, the best one in the entire Empire, since the Emperor himself called him for participating in this operation - frowned a little.

"Okay, guys, but you know - I'm not into smoking. And know, if you've touched sandwiches, brought here by my wife… well, the unexpected bowel movements should start in roughly a minute or so!"

For a thirty seconds, there was an uneasy silence, soon followed by "Sanyuch, you fraggin' bastard!" and a sound of at least three men sprinting towards the restroom. Klim smiled and started to drive the crane back to the parking position, thinking about his son and sort-of-a-granddaughter, who stayed in the Imperial Science Facility 9.

Well, to design and create Flying Palace, he needs to start from something. Maybe, it’ll be his first step to make such an airship real.

Took the Tomodachi Life personality quiz for Jirarudan and he ended up with Confident Designer and told he should have an office and a lab coat.

……what.

Past of the future, future of the past...

Chapter 7. Never the same. "Entering Hoenn airspace!" announced the navigator. "Current speed - 100 km/h, altitude - 10 km." "Coolant temperature… normal," added mechanic. "Reactor’s working at optimal capacity. Main propellers rotating at 300 rpm, blades angle set at position 4." "Good," responded the captain, looking in the front window. "Rad-scans?" "I think directed rad-scanners are picking up something in the Meteor Falls… looks like our target," said the radiation safety officer. "Pilot - drop us down to 3 kms and lower the speed to 30 km/h. When we'll be directly above the Meteor Falls - shut down the primary propulsion and deploy the auxiliary thrusters, then transfer the control to me." "Acknowledged, commencing corrections," replied the pilot, slightly shifting joystick and thrust control rudder. "Good," noted the captain, then relaxed a bit. Right now, they were escorted by a few of military helicopters, tiltjets and some Hoennian military Pokemon, just in case anyone gets the wrong idea upon seeing such a great airship. After all, it was equipped with a nuclear reactor for power source and, should the rest of the airship be destroyed and the ultra-durable protective shell breached, will cause a lot of contamination… ---- "Your Majesty… your Majesty..." a scientist in Zemlino carefully tried to wake up the Emperor, who was sitting asleep in the chair near the ORBCOM station, after all those crazy events of yesterday. "Hm?.. If there's a third moon around the Red Planet - notify the Team 37, especially if it turns out to be an… eyed balloon or something…" the Emperor replied without actually awakening, being, apparently, in the midst of some bizarre and adventurous dream. "Again…" the Empress, who has just recently arrived to the flight control center, sighed, knowing a bit too well, just how enthusiastic her husband could get about anything aerospace-related. Especially after the first manned flight, when he has, somehow, managed to get into the SP-04 "Black Bird" spaceplane and, therefore, become the first human in space... "Anyway… now with the "Red Explorer" around the Moon, "Hauler" preparing to deorbit and "Dreamwing" back in hangar… we need to decide, how to direct the space program," said director of Zemlino FCC. "During the last nine months, it was directed solely towards building and launching the nuclear pulse battleship to open the road towards the skies again, with a few resupply vessels for it, but now, once we did it and made our intentions on keeping it open clear… what do we do?" "Honestly…" Empress started, in uneasy voice, "... I don't know. I mean, yes, we've opened the road to space again and people of the Empire are very happy about that, as well as showing Nation, that we're no jokes, but… I'm not really sure, what kind of directions are to be made of greater priority." "Orbital factories," Emperor replied, waking up upon hearing it at once. "Factories? Well… yes, they can be of use, but…" began director, only for the Emperor to interrupt him: "No buts. Even though I'm not big at ruling, I think we should capitalize on our success and get the info about the materials, which can be produced only in microgravity, and how they can help to improve the lives on the ground. I think info about the orbital hospitals can also help, since they are something everyday human can understand. If they start telling, that it'll be only available to aristocracy and rich - we should capitalize on grandiosity of our new Integrated Program Plan. It's finally time to put it back into action and make it reality." "... I guess," sighed Empress, thinking about words of her husband. "No time for guessing. We must make them realize, that the only way for them to get access to all the cool space stuff is to support the space program and help it grow as never before. We're on the verge of greatness now and we must achieve it." "Hopefully, you succeed at this," said director of the FCC, "because I'd hate the program falling apart, after all we've done..." "We all would," replied the Emperor and the Empress at the same time. ---- "So… that's it," murmured Damien, seeing gigantic nuclear-powered airship soar through the skies back to Soris, carrying highly radioactive corpse of Rayquaza inside the shielded cargo section. For all of the Draconid People, it was one heck of a blow - not only the Dragon Lord was killed, but they could not even bury it properly, having to allow sorisians to stuff it into an underground nuclear waste dump. And, what's worse, none of them could do anything about it - not only Rayquaza's corpse was radioactive enough to be able to give human a fatal radiation poisoning in matter of a few minutes, burying it in classic way would've allowed the leaking isotopes to, eventually, contaminate the groundwater and cause a big ecological catastrophe. "Grannie…" started Helian, "... What will happen now? With no Dragon Lord?" "I don't know," said the Elder, looking at the airship too. "But I think, that the world will never be the same…" ---- "So, we're done with preliminary checks," sighed mechanic, who was servicing the "Dreamwing" in the hangar #2 of Zemlino Space Center. "So far, everything looks fine." "Great," replied commander of the spaceplane. "Hopefully, our birdie will stay fine in the future too." "Hopefully… but it may get replaced with the new nuclear-powered spaceplane soon, when they iron out the hiccups of nuclear turboramjets and aerodynamics of the aft. I've heard Emperor got opposed to the idea of jettisonable aerodynamic tail cone and they're busy developing something, which will allow everything to come up and down in one piece." "Cool. Almost like our machine." "Yeah. From what I've heard, test flights of the SPN-01 "Blizzard", the first BLUEBIRD spaceplane, should start pretty soon. And with no Rayquaza around, they should be safe enough." "Safe, you say… the debris is still in place, though. And I don't think, that this spaceplane can be as armored as the battleship we've launched recently." "Well… yeah. Still, we've managed to take a flight to the "Red Explorer" and spend some time up there, so, maybe it won't be as bad. Besides, I've heard some rumors about how there are plans for dual-purpose weaponized satellites, which can both destroy targets in space and use their weapons for clearing space junk." "Hm… Interesting and kinda makes sense. I guess those laser researches in the ISFs 5 and 9 will be put to good use, after all." "I guess." "Hi, guys," said the engineer of the "Dreamwing", approaching the two men on this catwalk. "Anything wrong with sensors?" "No, nothing is wrong with them," replied mechanic and was a bit surprised upon seeing, how crewmembers of the "Dreamwing" suddenly got grimier and exchanged looks of understanding. "I guess we may have another dragon problem soon enough…" stated the commander, looking at the machine. "And who knows, if we'll have to resort to warships again…" ---- Awake. Alive. Those were the first thoughts of the young dragon. Right now, it did not understand the situation yet, but some strange memories, belonging both to the dragon and not to it at the same time, were flooding its mind. It was slowly to understand some things, but not too fast. It understood, that its name was Rayquaza, the Sky High Pokemon. It understood, that it exists to protect the skies and deal with Groudon and Kyogre. It understood, that something must've happened to its predecessor, if it was awakened right now. With those thoughts, young dragon has struck the hard shell of the egg and broke it apart, freeing itself. As it has just remembered, despite most of the Legendaries, like itself, being near-immortal, there were still contingency protocols in events of something exceptional happening. And, apparently, something exceptional it was. The young dragon has remembered the last moments of the old dragon, when it fought some huge cone-cylindrical metallic construct and, somehow, was struck down by it. Whatever moves this construct was using, they've had near-infernal power. And young dragon could not allow itself to suffer the fate of its predecessor. For now, it will lay low and explore, as it grows back to the power level of a full Legendary. Then… it will depend on circumstances. With those thoughts, young pitch-black serpentine dragon took off, flew past the obstacles and left the cave, well-hidden in the mountain range. Right now, it had to, first and foremost, survive and grow up. ---- Inside the bridge of the huge sorisian airship, there was not much action now. Rayquaza's highly-radioactive corpse was now in the reinforced storage, they were en route home, everything on the airship worked perfectly… honestly, it was kind of boring. "Guys…" started the navigator, "Do you remember our first assignment? The aerial expedition to Alola?" "Oh, I sure do!" replied the pilot, shifting in the chair a bit. "How we all have flown to it, how we've spent a decent amount of hydrogen burnfuel for our recon plane and heavy-lift helicopter, how technicians were able to assemble the mooring masts in just three days… that was the time!" "Especially with how we've managed to bring some Flygon eggs to Soris. Who knew, that those insect-dragons will become so popular at our home!" "Well… they did become popular with our colonists, didn't they? I mean, by the end of our stay there, quite a few people liked their partner 'Spirits of Change'. Including you." "... Yeah. Also…" With those words said, pilot reached out for one of his MFDs, quickly selected "security camera feeds" options and looked at the feed from the top hangar a bit. In it, an insect-dragon was quietly sleeping, curled near the tandem-rotor helicopter - much like during their return from the expedition. "... Nah, she's fine. Took Sunny form for some reason, though." "I would've said because of our cargo, but it'd be stupid. By the way… strangely enough, but native Alolan Flygon seem to be extinct nowadays, with Hoennian subspecies, somehow, having replaced them." "Hoopa's shenanigans again?" "Likely. May also be combined with the fact, that Hoennian Flygon, while lacking the sheer versatility of its Alolan progenitor, is better adapted to the desert conditions. I guess they've just lost the competition there." "And our region has preserved those dragon-bugs. Cool." "I guess. I've heard from some of my friends in ISF 4, that some scientists from Hoenn and Alola would be really happy to get more data about the extinct-for-them Alolan Flygon." "Likely." Author's notes: ISF - Imperial Science Facility. ORBCOM - Orbiter Communicator. MFD - Multi-Function Display. Sorisian nuclear airship is based on that. BLUEBIRD spaceplane is based on the real M(G)-19 "Gurkolyot". Alolan Flygons are based on that wonderful picture.

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Corporations, part 2.

Corporations relationships with most of the non-corporate governments are... far from the best, to say at least.

The most hated for them is the Official World State, more known as Pokemon Nation. For corporates, it’s embodiment of everything they hate: ignorance, which allows such criminal syndicates as Team Rocket or even Team Flare to grow and prospere (of course, corps had involvement in the Cipher’s Shadow Project, but they do this very rarely); lack of guts, which allows Legendaries rampages to happen (General Industries isn’t above blackmailing and recruiting Jeanette McMertry, more known as Hunter J, to fight such threat if required - her petrifier cannon is a wonderful thing, though it’s yet to be replicated and mass-produced. Yes, corps had blackmailed and recruited Hunter J, even if less powerful, than in canon, because of time period difference) and, most importantly, heavily Pokemon-dependant society, especially technology. For corps, any technology to be used by humans must be self-sustained and reliable, even if the Pokemon-based devices are easier to produce, or it’s “just a parody of the true technology”.

As you can guess, relationship with Azoth Kingdom isn’t good either. While corporates respect heavy automation of this city, they dislike technological stagnation (corporate “pure-tech” devices are already somewhat ahead of the AK’s arcane science-based ones and continue to advance further, while Azoth Kingdom is now only slightly more advanced than in the Nikola’s times) and Pokemon involvement in the city’s machinery operation. They are also main competitors on the airship and gravplane markets, which were traditionally occupied by the Kingdom, but, thanks to both real Lawrence III and protagonist, as well as many other corporate scientists, General Industries is slowly, but surely starts to overtake these markets, because corporate machines are cheaper, more advanced and can offer more options for the same price. Of course, it’s not going to end well for the AK, if they don’t adapt.

The (fic-unique) Soris Region, while still nominally controlled by the Pokemon Nation / Official World State, is under very heavy influence of the Tunguska Technologies and has lots of TT-owned corporate Enclaves. It also shall be noted that people here love Soris Flygons very much, going up to the point, where it’s far easier to get Pokemon Owner license for these cute, but powerful insect-dragons and their entire evo-line than for the, let us say, Pichu and it’s evo-line. It helps that Soris Flygons, unlike Hoenn relatives and much like Alolan ancestors, are very cooperative towards humans and are more intelligent than most of the dragon pokemon, because Soris is quite a harsh region, where survival requieres either sheer power or sharp minds. Alolan Flygons, which were introduced in the Soris region more than 3000 years ago by the Ancient Soris Empire, lacked in the raw power, but made up with this by their minds and cooperation with humans. Nowadays, their adapted offspring, Soris Flygons, are one of the most successful species in the Soris, but they still retain their cooperativeness and gentle nature towards humans.

GI does not have such influence over a single region, but they make up for this by having many Enclaves in different regions.

While corporates are pretty heavy into military, they also deeply care for the employees, because, as they say, “it’s the best way to prove that we are far better than the Official State!”. Everyone who is empoyed by either of the corporations receives good free healthcare and overall treatment. They have flexible social care programs, as well as job finding. Have willingly terminated your contract with one of the branches to transfer into another? No problem, your shares remain at the previous level, if you don’t screw up badly before, during or after transfer! Want to help employ your relatives? A little testing and they will be presented with a most suitable jobs for them!

Overall, life in corporate Enclaves is, most of times, better, than in the Official State-governed cities, but it comes at price of working for corporation or, at least, living with one who works for it, pretty strict rules, zero criminal Team tolerance (if you are proven to work for one of the Teams at the current moment, your contract is immideately terminated with blacklisting your biological ID, making you persona non-grata in all of the corporate-owned property. However, if you willingly surrender, you make soften your punishment), prohibition of Pokemon battles anywhere but specialized Training Complexes and, to make you feel “better”, some of other moments, which make Enclaves pretty similar to the Soviet “closed cities”, albeit with (relatively) free information access, which is, however, monitored by the Enclave’s main computer system to prevent essential data from slipping into the wrong hands. Yes, not quite paradise, but still something.

Source for Alolan Flygons (author gave me a permission to use them) - http://a-guiar.deviantart.com/art/Alolan-Flygon-637147209

In the ”Pocket Monsters: The Animation” light novels, written by Takeshi Shudo - director of the original series, person became legally adult at age ten. Also, in it, Delia got pregnant at 18. Make your own conclusions. TV Tropes page for further shocking discoveries - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/LightNovel/PocketMonstersTheAnimation

Link to the translated versions - http://pokemonthenovel.dreamwidth.org/380.html

Thrilling, fast-paced, thought-provoking dialog of Pokemon, the Animated Series.

For @nyxthecolonialmewtwo

Commission for @mgrgfan

And Latios in "Pokemon Heroes", and Volcanion in the recent "Volcanion and the Mechanical Marvel".

Pokémon at the University

So, this morning I took an extremly interesting class revolving around theological causes for thought about New Testament issues. We had to discuss about sacrificial death and the teacher asked us to think of films in wich this topic plays a major role. People mentioned Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Narnia and then the professor looked at us and said: “You know where else we encounter this issue? - Pokémon!” Some of my fellow students turned their heads to me and called my name so I said that he refers to the first movie and blushed to the roots of my hair. It was on the tip of my tongue, I really wanted to add that without Team Rocket, Ash wouldn’t even had the chance to reach this island, but I effaced myself and instead of talking about my favourite Anime, I decided to make some inspiring remarks after listening to Schleiermacher’s and Müller’s theories about the atonement.

Jokes apart, this was one of the best introductions I’ve ever had. I believe this class is going to be highly frequented, not least because the topic is going to be much talked of. Thanks.

About staff - maybe, Flying Palace is fully automated and have robots for all the sorts of maintance work, so no human staff required, and in the movie outer parts of Palace central structure are simply circular. And shield-like structures may be anti-gravity modules (they look pretty hi-tech on close-up, when Ash and Co sprints downwards on the one of them).

The Hikoukyuu is really really weird. It looks like the floors are giant spirals, or at least have giant spiral staircases going along the outsides of them, and over to the side there’s some sort of garden? I’d imagine that limits the amount of times he has to land, but that would also mean that he’d have to retain a constant staff or do all the work himself, and I can’t see either of those happening (temporary staff seems the most likely idea given his personality). And those weird shields just…what are they? Sun shields?

also apparently the propellers were Jirarudan’s idea, to fit his aesthetics. Which makes me wonder what the original design would have been.

The one in the "I told you to call me daddy" image is Palmer and he's talking to Barry. You know, the one person who could call him daddy and have it not be weird.

I’m not sure what are you about, but OK, thanks for the info.