Latest Posts by mgrgfan - Page 2

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.

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Ancient Soris Empire’s robotics, Combatron.

Back in the ASE’s days, the Combatron-class assault robot was thought to be true pride of the Soris’ military robotics. This machine was one of the most advanced and powerful battle robots ever created.

Standing 1m 70cm high, this anthropomorphic arcane science-based robot had six limbs.

The two upper limbs, in additional to five-fingered palm manipulators, housed very sharp, sturdy and durable cutter blades, which could’ve been made even more deadly by activating the blade enhancing system and enshrouding them in clouds of typeless destructive arcane energy. In the idle mode, the blades were folded to the forearms like a switchblade.

The two middle limbs had five-fingered palms and could house two elbow-mounted arcane repeater guns of submachine guns. In practice, however, they were mostly left empty, to enhance robot’s mobility. Some of the later robots, however, had two grappling hook launchers installed here, to enhance the mobility of machine.

The two lower limbs were digitigrade, six repositionable digits total.

All limbs had advanced gripping systems, which allowed them to climb smooth vertical walls like a Treecko. In addition to it, the small deployable claws allowed for better grip on non-smooth surfaces (though they were pretty good at ripping flesh too).

The servos of the combatron were able to provide enough power and movement speed to allow robot to quickly jump from wall to wall even in the halls with 20 meters between walls.

Inside the main logic core, the combatron had Calcutec Hexalith Cluster CPU, 64 GDUnits (GigaDataUnits) of RAM and 50 TDUnits (TeraDataUnits) of ROM. This setup, along with advanced software, allowed machine for being pretty smart, although not really sapient (bar few experimental models)

The combatron also had the cloaking system, based on the research of the Lati dragon’s cloaking abilities. While it had some quirks (namely, only worked at full capacity if robot moved slowly enough and was slowly giving away as the Assault Beam Cannon was charging), it still gave robot an undeniable combat advantage.

The mostly-cylindrical head housed the main weapon of this robot - the dreaded Assault Beam Cannon. While it, theoretically, could fire in several different modes - short pulse, cutting beam or beam of incredible power, capable of obliterating pretty much everything (the Assault Beam). However, the first two modes were, for some reason, wearing down the cannon’s system too much, so, they were very rarely used.

The key to everything in this robot was the power source - two integral and one removable ultra-high density rechargeable arcane energy batteries and multi-purpose power converter. They were also key to its enormous price, since they were incredibly hard and expensive to produce. The recharge was also quite a problem, since very few power sources could provide sufficient amount of power in sufficiently short time.

Before and during the Ancient Soris War, only two thousands of units were produced. Some of them were deployed and fought on the battlefields of Soris, some of them were stashed and never activated and some were moved to the colonies during the final phase of war to act as their guardians. However, not all robots were successfully transported and some were lost.

However, the last part does not apply to the Shift-verse, where the Empire, instead of Ancient Soris War, got time-shifted 3100 years ahead and, therefore, was never destroyed and even prospered in the new time.

Memory, part 2 (mini-fic)

Compulink system active.

Please, enter login and password.

Login and password correct. Access granted.

Accessing “GY-PLFU-LOG-1″ datafile…

EDIT MODE

Goncharenko Yevgeniy, personal bioresearch log.

Second stage.

25.6.424 AFE, 19:43

Huh... Looks like she has imprinted on me. ‘Guess it’s good, because it means easier further observation and experimentation. Also, reinforced cleansuit was a great idea - even the young Lati dragons have pretty sharp claws of their... arms, paws? Whatever. Still, the hatching process, which, like the others of Psychic Pokemon, which were observed before, involved usage of Psychic energy to telekinetically shatter the eggshell, but here, instead of normal breakapart, she blew it up with the force of a pipe bomb! Good thing equipment was protected (it’s a lab for studying Pokemon, after all) and eggshell itself was not hard enough to do any damage. Still, looks like the “mental capacity upgrade”  is already showing, at least in the Psychic power.

23.7.424 AFE, 18:25

For someone born not within the nest, in the embrace of loving mother, but, rather, within cold confines of the laboratory, surrounded by lifeless scientific equipment, she does surprisingly good (and by “surprisingly good” I mean “just as good as normally-hatched Lati dragon, if not even better”). She is quite playful (I need to buy some beer to our arcanist team for giving me this thermographic camera. As good as Lati can cloak or pseudo-Transform, they can’t completely mimic thermal emissions of those they impersonate or hide them), very good learner (once again, I need to buy some more beer to our arcanists, because, if not for their advanced identity recognition system, she would’ve succeeded in accessing my terminal and I don’t want to even think, what she woud’ve done then. Hm... Maybe, I should give her her own terminal? It’ll help with some mental testing experiments and will (I hope) slow her down) and is pretty healthy (thankfully, arcane science team was not involved in this, or I’d have my entire salary spent on beer. Just joking, most of them hate beer, but love nullified Stones for their personal arcane experiments. This shit, most of which is imported from the Kalos mining site, isn’t cheap AT ALL. I’m so going zero on money...).

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, general health monitoring datafile, optical and thermographic photos]

31.12.424 AFE, 21:15

Today, our Division’s New Year celebration will, for the first time since the founding of this Facility, encompass both surface and underground complexes. Thanks to my connections with Director, I was able to get clearance to bring Liya (the young Latias of mine) to the celebration. Not without stun-collar, of course, but still better than nothing. We have to go now, so, everything is in attached!

P.S. Liya is growing up really fast, even faster, than normal Lati. Can it be side effect from the viruses I’ve used? Of course, she should stabilize once her body reaches adult stage, but... Anyway, the mind enhancement part most definitely works.

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, general health monitoring datafile, optical and thermographic photos, full biological screening record datafile, Liya’s personal terminal activity log datafile]

-                                                                                                                              -

-... 56, 57, 58, 59, 00!!! - sounded scream of hundreds of employes of the facility, when the clocks of the Imperial Palace marked beginning of the 425 year after the foundation of the Empire. Liya still couldn’t understand, why this was so important to the humans, but, considering sheer amount of happiness she sensed, it was. Still, those colorful explosions in the sky were really beautiful, even if slightly hard for her sensitive ears.

- It was beautiful, wasn’t it? - asked her human, who took the role of her father. Liya knew, that human could never be a parent of Lati, but she didn’t really care - he loved her and cared for her.

*Yes,* - replied she. - *It was really beautiful. So, what do we do now?*

- First of all - you drop your camouflage and return to your real form. Second - we go into the Central Biodome and take a ride on elevator into the Underground Complex. I’m sure you’ll like it.

*OK,* - replied she, reluctantly dropping her false human appearance and slowly hovering along with him into the huge dome-shaped building. As much as she wanted to stay on the outside, inside, it was warm, and cold was not something she liked.

- Looks like most of our Division wants to party on surface, - made a comment scientist, looking, how surprisingly few people were in the dome. - Anyway, let’s take a ride on the elevator! Believe me, even the Imperial Palace does not have this kind of visuals!

*Wow...*- telepathically “whispered” Latias, looking through the glass walls of the elevator cabin. Right now, they were descending into giant artificial cylindrical cavern with sleek white ceramic-looking walls, which were covered in similarily-sleek balconies, terraces and rounded windows.

- Welcome to the Underground Complex, Bioscience Division Lobby! - proudly replied Yevgeniy. - On your right, you can see cafeteria, where employees of this Division can relax and eat some nice food. On your left, there’s a small recreation zone, when employees can entertain themselves. This part of complex is highly automated. Right now, the illumination should’ve been toned down and ceiling should’ve been switched into night mode, with imitations of stars and moon, but because of the holiday, it was dropped down, just for one night. Each of the main Divisions - Bioscience, Arcanics, Physics, Production and Chemistry - have their own lobbies like this. To be honest, arcanists got even bigger lobby... but our is still much more beautiful!

*Arcanists?* - wondered Liya.

- The ones, who use arcane science and move it ahead. If you want to, I can give you a tour in the Arcane Science Division’s Sector. By the way, research of your cloaking and psychic abilities helped them immensely!

*Thanks,* - replied Latias, feeling slightly shy.

- Honestly, Liya, you grow up so fast... - said a human, looking at nowhere in particular. Young Eon Pokemon would’ve asked him a question, if not for elevator finally arriving at the bottom of cavern and opening the doors. Human and Lati dragon left the cabin and walked through the large atrium, complete with trees and fountains. As large as it was, a decent part of it was covered with tables with lots of dishes and drinks, most of which had humans sitting at them and partying.

Soon, Liya and Yevgeniy arrived near the relatively small table for eight persons, which had only six of places occupied.

- Hi there, Seryoga! - welcomed his old friend microbiologist. - How’s going?

- Good, we were waiting for you for, like, a thousand years!

- Well, we’ve finally arrived. Do you mind if we take a seat?

- No probs, comrade! But can your Lati friend fold her wings a little? There’s not much place here, you know.

- Lati have rigid variable-sweep wings, not the classic ones! However... Liya, - Yevgeniy turned to Latias, - can you position you wings like for a high-speed flight? No, wait, forget it, it won’t do a thing, not with your reposition angles and wingspan. Can you use this pseudo-Transform?

*I can,* - replied young dragon, focusing her inner power on the shape of her body and slowly, but surely remaking it into what she desired.

- Holy flak cannon, - whispered one of the other scientists, seeing this. - Zheka - mind if I read your files on this?

- Won’t, - said Yevgeniy, seeing, how Liya relatively quickly changed her look from the golden-feathered Latias into what could pass as a human teenager and then taking a seat.

- Awesome, - nodded Sergey, then pulled a decently-sized package from under the table. - Blue cheese, my personal project. I’m a mycologist, after all. Hope it’ll pass good along with our sparkling wine!

- So, an actual sparkling wine this time, and not a gargle blaster from our Booze-o-tron, constructed back in 419? Cool. Liya - sorry, this drink is not for you, since it’s a poison to Lati. Speaking strictly - it’s also a poison to humans, but our organisms can metabolise it somewhat, giving some interesting effects. If you want to drink - here’s your lemonade, - nearly motor-mouthed Yevgeniy on a single breath, grabbing a bottle from another table nearby and pouring some of its content into glass before disguised Latias.

- Well, Bon Appetit, I guess. For the ISF! - raised the glass, full with sparkling wine, Sergey.

- For the ISF! - all of the sitting ones clinked glasses. Latias did not know, what did it truly mean, but decided to support it and raised her own too, causing a few friendly laughes. Soon after, the mealtime came and all men and women started to enjoy the culinary mastery of the Division’s cafeterias. Liya, seeing this, decided to give it a try. Surprisingly, despite her initial fears, the human food was pretty tasty, if only a bit too spicy for her.

- Li, be careful - our food, unadapted, might taste quite good, but eat too much of it today - and you are so gonna regret it tomorrow! - warned her Yevgeniy. She slowed down a little, but overall, the celebration has continued, especially when most of table near the center of the Lobby were moved aside to make a room for dance.

Suddenly, a flash of orange light, a thuderous clap - and the huge, six-limbed mechanical Pokemon appeared just a few meters away from partying scientists.

- WHAT THE FLAK?! - screamed one of the biologists, trying to jump and only succeeding in falling on back together with his chair. - Chugun - what the heck was that?

- Slingshot relaying device test, - replied the creation of the leading arcanist team in his usual metallic voice. - From what it looks like, I’m still in one piece, hadn’t clipped into the ground and operating, so, test’s a success!

- What in the world this “slingshot relaying device” thing is? - asked an already drunk mycologist, examining a piece of blue cheese.

- An addition to the tseryobla, which allows teleportation from one point to other without need to stop in the tseryobla itself. As you know, tseryobla works by using the Reflection World as an unexpressed axis for-

- Please, keep it short!

- I’m doing it. So, it uses the Reflection World, which, as some of you know, is a sort of a border world, as an unexpressed axis, so we can swing whatever we want to teleport around the border world and get it back without it actually going past the barrier. What the slingshot relaying device does in the grand scheme of things? It allows us to pull one slingshot right after another, eliminating the need for rematerialize in-between teleportation beginning and destination points. Basically, it allows true point-to-point teleportation, without need to stop in the tseryobla.

- Cool! - whistled Yevgeniy.

- By the way - Groisman, Maler and I are very grateful to you for the Teleport move research data and we want to invite you to our small party, - said Chugun somewhat shy, then placed two cylindric devices with a single covered button on top of each of them on the table. - Those are Slingshot Beacons. If you want to go to us right now, you can press the button and slingshot yourself directly - it’s completely safe, trust me - into the Teleportation Lab 3, where Team 2 has set our own quiet party. If you don’t want... then you can travel the old-fashioned way or just stay here. Anyway, I’m done here. Goodbye!

One more orange flash, thunderous clap - and Chugun vanished.

- I knew arcanists had some loose screws, but never thought, that their screws are that loose, - slowly commented one of the geneticists.

*What’s this?* - asked still slightly confused Liya, grabbing one of the teleportation beacons.

- A marker device for teleportation. You need to flip a safety cover and press a button to initiate sequence, - mumbled mycologist, examining yet another piece of blue cheese. - Nah, this strain of mold isn’t as good as earlier one.

- Liya, do you really want to... LIYA!!! - screamed Yevgeniy, when Latias, who was a little too curious for her own good sometimes, used one of the beacons and got teleported away. - Seryoga - thank you a flakking lot! Guys, gotta go now!

With these words, microbiologist grabbed a second Slingshot Beacon and activated it, hoping to get to his creation and almost adoptive daughter before something bad happens.

Memory, part 1 (mini-fic)

Compulink system active.

Please, enter login and password.

Login and password correct. Access granted.

New infomail message received.

20.6.423 AFE, 12:04

From:

Yevgeniy Goncharenko, Imperial Science Facility 9, Bioscience Division, Surface Complex, Extraregional Pokemon Study Lab.

To:

Grigoriy Valetov, Imperial Science Facility 9, Bioscience Division, Underground Complex, Samples and Specimen Requisition Office.

Topic:

Re: New specimen required.

“Dr. Valetov, for how long will I be forced to repeat this? I said it quite obvious - I need a Lati dragon egg for my genetic engineering project. I know you have a healthy supply of cryo-frozen Dragon-type eggs in your underground cryo-storage, so, can’t you donate at least one to me? I won’t touch the amoral side of your breeding and eugenics experiments - after all, it’s all for science and greater good - but you are disrupting the scientific process here. Or, maybe, I shall write report about this to Dr. Pobegov?”

Open private chat?

To whom?

Private chat opened to: Victor Osipovich, Imperial Science Facility 9, Bioscience Division, Underground Complex, Cryogenic Specimen and Sample Storage.

You: Vitya, it’s a complete screwup. This damn cleansuit, just like before, expects us to handle him a Lati dragon egg, preferably, laid just before freezing.

Victor: So what? Can’t you just tell him to go unzip himself somewhere in the corner, like the previous time?

You: Heck no! Do you remember, that he was favorite student of this trepanatic old fart?

Victor: I do, and so what?

You: He gave me a threat to report us to Facility’s boss. Knowing, that this whitehead will listen to his favorite, and that we already have some unpleasant moments in our biographies... in short, we are very likely to blast off from this facility at the speed of light, much faster than a meteorological rocket.

Victor: What a douchebag! So, what do we do?

You: I guess, we need to give him the egg, if we want to stay here. Dunno about you, but I do want - full social and medical care, good salary and like this is not something I’d like to lose.

Victor: So am I. By the way, had he specified, what Lati dragon egg does he need?

You: No.

Victor: Well, I’ll give him Latias egg then. You know, just how problematic Lati females may get with their pranks, cloaking and like this.

You: Yep. Great idea, by the way. Over.

Chatlink terminated.

                                                                                                                              Compulink system active.

Please, enter login and password.

Login and password correct. Access granted.

Accessing “GY-PLFU-LOG-1″ datafile...

EDIT MODE

Goncharenko Yevgeniy, personal bioresearch log.

First stage.

22.6.423 AFE, 14:54

Finally, those two redtapers delivered the egg to me - after just two months of constant requests! It’s still cryo-frozen, but ready to get de-freezed at any moment. According to the attached datatape, this egg was frozen right after laying, so, it’s a perfect material for my little experiment. Good thing I’ve tested my virus long ago, on some basic samples...

[Attached file: LDM-4-1 artificial virus DNA sequence datafile]

26.6.423 AFE, 17:32

Today, at 10:54, I’ve de-freezed the egg and injected the first portion of virus. Right now, it’s undergoing incubation with constant progress monitoring. So far, so good. I hope not to lose this one.

[Attached file: monitoring log from automated incubation chamber]

26.7.423 AFE, 18:32

It’s been a whole month, but development of embryo... actually, seems pretty good. According to the datanote from the Lab 7, normal incubation period for Lati dragons - specificially, females - is almost a year! Of course, it’ll allow me to monitor results better and make corrections in event of something going wrong, but still... Anyway, my free time ends in two days, then back to microbiological experiments. I hope I’ll be able to convince Director to cut it somewhat to allow me to work on my personal project.

[Attached files: monitoring log from automated incubation chamber, general schedule for checks and injections of supporting biological agents, LDM-4-2 artificial virus DNA sequence datafile]

30.01.424 AFE, 23:37

Whoa, more than half’o’year has passed! Speaking of which... Two months after the initial portion of virus, embryo was nearly destabilized by something similar to the immune reaction (how it’s possible in egg is a matter of entirely different research, which I’ve successfully passed to the Lab 4), but, thankfully, some immunosupressants and modified virus had done the trick. If my calculations are correct, it won’t impact actual immune system, which’ll “go online” after the hatching, but, in case of an emergency, I have antibiotics, compatible with Dragon-type and Psychic-type organisms. Also, vaccines.

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, monitoring log from automated incubation chamber, general schedule for checks and injections of supporting biological agents, LDM-4-3 artificial virus DNA sequence datafile]

25.6.424 AFE, 15:52

According to the automated incubation chamber monitoring system, tomorrow the egg will finally hatch - exactly after year of development! Maybe, I should’ve updated this personal log with entries more often... but anyway, I had not, and all my observations and relevant data are stored in attached datafiles. I wonder, how will it turn out? Of course, I’ve tried to enhance Latias’ mental capabilities and lifespan (according to my calculations, it’ll become thrice as long - roughly 3000 years or slightly more!), but I’m still not sure, will it work as intended or not... Anyway, I think need to bring my reinforced cleanroom suit to bear tomorrow.

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, monitoring log from automated incubation chamber, general schedule for checks and injections of supporting biological agents]

                                                                                                                              The emerald eye sprung open, trying to look around, but met only darkness. Her body felt numb, there was too little place, she couldn’t breath, so, she focused all of her inner power and released it at once.

The eggshell shattered, flying everywhere and revealing a small gold-feathered Latias to the world - rigid wings swept at low-speed position, stabilizer fins set straight.

Mere seconds after that, a pretty big figure, covered in blue-ish material (except for face, which was hidden beyond the bent sheet of something transparent), carefully rose from beyond one of the things she couldn’t even begin to recognize and started to approach her.

While she could not read feels of other the same way adult Lati dragons could, she still sensed no ill intentions in him and felt some distant... but definitely parental feeling, so, she flew right to him and clenched to the material, which was covering his real body.

1. Loads and loads. At least three immediate works, some lesser priority ones and so on.

2. Some books - still not sure, which exactly.

3. AUs. I even write them. In fact, I often enjoy worldbuilding more, than writing the fic itself.

4. None really, since I don’t have preferences here..

5. Altoshipping.

6. The translation-wrecked Star Wars’ episodes (also known as Star War Gatherings).

7. Heck if I remember.

8, 9 - N/A.

10. Sort of. Hunter J and Ash never become enemies, as Hunter is blackmailed and forced to quit hunting, then hired as a corporate agent and enforcer.

11, 12, 13 - N/A.

14:

- Rayquaza, Deoxys - he is overriding the controls of fusion engines and I can't do a thing about it as long as he's up here! If you manage to remove him from there, I'll stop the deceleration, turn the colony around and put us back on normal orbit! Nearly forgot - thirty minutes of thrust before point of no return, so, please, for the sake of this world and this colony, hurry! Also, I think, this music can provide some morality boost.

(Live and Learn, 30 minutes, kicks in)

15:

- Actually, I am heavily modified C18 Mega-2 Heavy Assault Bipedal Walker Robot, - suddenly responded machine. - C18-EN or "Caden" for short. Please, don't compare me to the vastly inferior predecessor of this type of platform.

16. A crazy AU which started with a single idea of accidental traveller derailing events of the movie and then got derailed itself, when I’ve dived into worldbuilding.

17. Some fic with protagonist referring to the Universal Genre Savvy Guide and not failing for many plot moments, derailing it entirely.

18. No.

19. Not sure, since my headcanons can instantly become an ideas for fics and then it’s next to impossible to separate them from the normal ideas.

20. @blackjackgabbiani, with her “Obsession”. There are some others, but their fics are, unfortunately, dead. That’s sad. Of course, there’s also “You only live thrice” James Bond/Harry Potter crossover, but updates are rare (they are steady, though) and it’s in russian.

P.S. To my readers - I’ll try to finish and post some new mini-fics ASAP. Thank you for your patience.

Fanfic Asks

1. If you’re an author, how many WIPs do you currently have? (Be honest!)

2. What’s next on your ‘to-read’ list? (Fan fiction or otherwise)

3. Do you prefer canonverse or AUs?

4. What fandom’s/ship’s fan fiction do you read the most?

5. What’s a crackship you love?

6. What’s the last thing you read that made you laugh?

7. What’s the last thing you read that made you cry?

8. Bed sharing or roommates AU?

9. Fake dating or arranged marriage?

10. Mutual pining or enemies to friends to lovers?

11. Kid fic or childhood friends?

12. Friends with benefits or secret dating?

13. Exes or established relationship?

14. (For authors) Post a line of dialogue from one of your WIPs without context.

15. Post the last line you wrote without context.

16. Describe your WIP that currently has the highest word count.

17. Describe a fic that is still in the ‘ideas’ stage.

18. Do you have a fic reading/writing routine?

19. What’s your favorite character headcanon?

20. Do you have a favorite fanfic or author? If so, tag them/post a link and share the love!

ISF 9 Chronicles, part 4.

Further reading is impossible without additional password.

Do you wish to enter it?

Password accepted.

READ ONLY

Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

04.07.419 AFE

Arcanists finished replacing focusing lenses in irradiation chamber. The material for them has to be imported from Kalos mining site, then purified by using some equipment, unknown to me, and many, many kilowatts of electricity and only then they can start forming the lenses themselves. Also, after the initial forming, they have to be autoclaved and microwaved, as well as sterilized by gamma radiation, before further procedures can be commenced, then this cycle has to be repeated again. No wonder they’re so expensive!

08.07.419 AFE

Vitya brought something from his friend in Bioscience Division. Says, that it’s some kind of a “really dank kush” and we shall “blaze it”. Whatever, I guess. My intuition does not say anything bad about it.

08.07.419 AFE

Shiiit... This weed was really dank as flak. We easily glomped two bags of small pies. I think I’m starting to...

08.07.419 AFE

Dude, I can FEEL data. This is such a wonderful feeling... I mean, my brain is a bioneural computer or whatever, the things I maintain are also computers, only non-bioneural. I think I need to share my ideas with IDE.

09.07.419 AFE

I don’t even know what to think anymore. Yesterday, I’ve got really high and wrote a program under the effects of weed. The program itself is fine and good, but the structure and language... How I’ve managed to do it on several esoteric languages... WHAT WILL I TELL TO SUPERIORS?!

EDIT: Thankfully, my high self was high and kind enough to make version on the UPL3 with commentaries. It’s just as optimised as other versions and even has all the commentaries, though I’m yet to fully decipher them, because of them being written under the effects of the weed.

12.07.419 AFE

Arcanists and bioscientists had finally discovered the reason behind the Mega Stone’s explosion. Yes, my suspicions were right - it was tied to the Flygons’ adaptability. Apparently, this metamorphosis-inducing trait conflicts with usual Mega Evolution metamorphic signature or something like this, their speech was complicated. What’s more important is that it’s too similar to the Mega Evo and, when the Proto Stone gets irradiated with Flygon’s tissue serving as life energy modulator, it starts to morph into five kinds of different Mega Stones at the same time, crystallic structure becomes unstable, tensions rise, then boom - every last bit of energy gets released as Stone becomes high-velocity dust.

18.07.419 AFE

Arcanists monitored our region today. They say, that there are some pretty strange readings in the Grey Mountains. No shit. There’s like, a whole science town up there, dedicated to the research of this phenomena! Still, if the readings are strange for them, compared to the previous ones... I don’t like it, not at all.

25.07.419 AFE

Saw arrival of the “Overlord of Skies”-class airship in person. It’s so magnificent. Interestingly enough, some Flygons not just flew along with it, but, like, escorted it, trying to provide additional data as much as they could and helping to correct course. Of course, with autopilot, developed here in the Robotics Sub-Division, it wasn’t necessary, but still, I (and pilot, for what it seems) appreciate it. Looks like those dragon-bugs are smarter than they seem to be...

End of the “NB-CHRN-2″ datafile has been reached.

Access the next datafile?

ISF 9 Chronicles, part 3

End of the “NB-CHRN-1″ datafile has been reached.

Access the next datafile?

Accessing “NB-CHRN-2″ datafile...

READ ONLY

Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

13.06.419 AFE

Was working in the Bioscience Sector, Underground Complex, Cryogenic Specimen and Sample Storage (quite a name, BTW). Heard by the edge of my ear, that today, they’ve got several cryo-preserved eggs of Lati dragons, which, if I’ve heard correctly, were frozen right after laying. Considering, how elusive and protective of their offspring Lati are, I don’t even want to think of the exact methods of getting a hold of those eggs.

EDIT: Apparently, that involved tranq dart carbine, shotgun, loaded with Yadper Berry extract, Nega-Dark Stones and some other things. Considering, just what kind of an infernal substance Yadper Berry extract is (to compare this stuff to standard tear spray is like comparing a kiloton-grade nuclear device to a papirosa lighter), and how Nega-Dark Stone is capable of completely suppressing any psychic abilities in a small radius, this may not involve death of a parent Latis. Well, that’s a relief. Still, the Yadper extract is something, that may sometimes make you wish for death, especially if it gets into eyes, nose or mouth. Heck, this things burns even on the skin, and if it gets into open wound - say hello to many years of PAIN! I wonder, if Houndoom’s fire works through the same means...

EDIT2: Yes, it does. Thank the Director for making this internal info access network! Also, finally got an answer, why they don’t always suffer from it - apparently, their “chemtox injection” (basically, adding the pain chemicals into fuel for their fire attacks) is optional, since the Houndoom’s chemtox substance takes longer to synthesize, than fuel. Also, it allows them to fight for dominance in pack without crippling opponents for a long time and, basically, rendering them useless for the future hunts. Pretty interesting.

15.06.419 AFE

Was in Physics Sector. Found them designing something, called “ion driver cannon”. They say those guns are for hunting. Huge, liquid nitrogen-cooled particle accelerator guns, which require pretty much small nuclear reactor to just be powered. Yeah, totally for hunting. A hunter with a gun, followed by a truck with a reactor and cooling system. Do they plan to hunt adult Lugias or something with it? If so, Bioscience from all Facilities will rip their throats out.

20.06.419 AFE

Worked in Surface Complex, helping installing automatic cargo monorail control systems and debugging it for past 4 days. Tried to overcome my fear and get close to Flygons. Actually, they are rather adorable... as soon, as you get used to it. Thankfully, they are more Dragons, than Bugs, and their temper is good. Also, apparently, they can adapt to almost any kind of weather conditions (their secondary typing changes from Bug to Fire/Water/Ice/Ground, depending on what they need at the current moment), and Bioscience speaks of enhanching it, allowing them to adapt to pretty much anything (poisonous surroundings, high levels of radiation, biological contaminations and so on). Looks like they’ve heard, that our colonists in Alola call those dragons “Spirit of Change”, and decided “We can make it even better”! Are they trying to create world’s most adaptable Pokemon? I’m not sure, will they succeed in this or not, and what to expect from it...

24.06.419 AFE

It gets weirder and weirder. While, usually, most Mega Stone (the anomalous material, which can induce drastic temporary metamorphosis in specific Pokemon) creation attempts end in failures, the attempt to create Flygonite ended up in disaster. The damn boulder EXPLODED INTO DUST after getting irradiated with enough arcane energy to raise army of undead, heavily damaging the expensive-as-flak focusing lenses in process (thankfully, emitters had survived). Why do I know this? I was a part of team, who investigated the control automatics of this irradiation chamber - just in case, if they were the reason for it. They weren’t. I wonder, if the adaptational abilities of the Flygons have something to do with it...

27.06.419 AFE

Yesterday, I’ve tried the moonshine from the “United Divisions’ Apparatus”. Interestingly enough, today, there’s no hangover. Looks like I shall thank arcanists, chemicists and bioscientists for it. Especially the last ones - whatever drug they’ve given me, it worked like charm. The only bad thing is that I can barely remember, what was happening at this party. Looks like those experimental mixes were too much.

EDIT: Apparently, I was hanging out with Director and tear-jerkingly telling him, how hard our work is. Instead of firing us, he raised our salaries by 5%. Well, better not to upset him!

30.06.419 AFE

I never thought I’d see something like this. Basically, in Surface Complex, Bioscience Division, one Machamp has escaped and started wrecking shit. When he got to the Crematory, he was met by MTU-2 multipurpose quadruped robotic unit. I kid you not, this robot (square-like quadrupedal platform with turret, on which two manipulators and counterweight to them are installed. They are also resilient and durable as flak, capable of operating in the middle of corrosive agent spill or inside the working nuclear reactor) slowly approached this four-armed shit, then, somehow, managed to clench the lower arms with manipulators, quickly twisting and breaking them, while non-chalantly ignoring Pokemon’s Dynamic Punches (what the flak the robot’s covering is made of?), then it just... started to squeeze Pokemon’s body with enough force to nearly cut it apart, then it, when the Machamp tried to grip and break the manipulators, shifted the counterweight and started to spin the turret and walk, eventually driving Machamp into wall at high speed. When the Pokemon finally fainted, MTU-2 just carried the unconcious (and horribly damaged) body into the open high-temperature cremation chamber, then closed and activated it. I’m not sure, whether this Machamp was normal, or this robot was modified, but I’m sure this picture will give me many nightmares from now on...

Further reading is impossible without additional password.

Do you wish to enter it?

ISF9 Chronicles, part 2

Compulink connection failure.

Restart?

Restart sequence initiated.

Connection re-established.

Continue from the last point?

Continuing..

Accessing “NB-CHRN-1″ datafile…

READ ONLY

Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

16.05.419 AFE

The Physics Division is amazing. Today, I saw result of their cooperation with Production and Arcane Science Divisions. Basically, they’ve wanted to create the most powerful laser unit in the world... and they’ve succeeded. That wouldn’t be much of a problem, since they’ve also created absorber shield for it, but someone has forgotten to link it to the control system and, because of improper carrying, jammed the mechanism. Once the laser was activated, the shield was supposed to be lowered... but it didn’t. Laser coudn’t be disengaged until the firing procedure is complete, or else it would’ve been damaged beyond repair and/or blown up. In short, there is now a pretty big hole in the 2.5 meter-thick wall, as well as wall behind it, along with some of the molten concrete mass damaging the non-organic matter reprocessors (which are used for recycling junk). Needless to say, the Managers of those Divisions, as well as the Director of the Facility, are not pleased. Although, I need to say, this laser unit was really powerful.

20.05.419 AFE

Found out what the Lab 12 from Chemistry Division was up to. Apparently, this was a great project, one to unite all Divisions... and it was a moonshine apparatus. Still, all of the Divisions participated in creating it: Chemistry Division calculated the most optimal way to produce and refine the liquid, Bioscience Division grows the best components and produces basic mash, Production Division, along with Physics Division, build the apparatus itself and Arcane Science Division adds some unique filters to drive out remains of methanol, acetone, aldehydes and such. 

23.05.419 AFE

Today, the advanced Earth monitoring satellite “ReconSat 3″ was launched from our facility. Why is it important enough for me to write about it in my log? Because I also worked on this satellite, tweaking the reaction wheel control system. I’m proud of participating in the Imperial Space Program, even if such a way. What this sat will do? It’ll allow us to monitor arcane energy readings in most parts of the world (the satellite network for total monitoring is yet to be completed). It’s also powered by the small nuclear fission reactor, which is considered a masterpiece of both Physics and Production Divisions.

30.05.419 AFE

The satellite has got first pictures of Unova region. The unique strain of arcane energy, dubbed “Dragon Force” by arcanists because of possible link to the Unova’s Great Dragon (Bioscience is yet to give it official name), is a pretty interesting phenomenon, especially because there are three easily distinguishable “patterns” in the singular “flow”. There is also some weather-influencing field, but the “flows” here are separate.

12.06.419 AFE

The first month of my work in the Facility has ended. To be honest, I’ve never expected it to be like this. I thought it would be great, everyone working for the better future the best they can... Instead, from what I’ve seen, there’s chaos, where the research plans are merely guidelines, everyone does whatever he/she wants, people band together into interest groups, equipment gets misused major time, the Divisions are cooperating and competing with eachother at the same time... And, somehow, IT WORKS. From what I see, the way superiors treat Facility is “dump them funding, equipment and general plans - they’ll make it”, while the Director and Divisional Managers overwatch the personnel to ensure they won’t go too overhead. And they succeed in doing what the outside world wants from them. You know what? Screw this, I’m going in! If you can’t stop it - side with it!

End of the “NB-CHRN-1″ datafile has been reached.

Access the next datafile?

ISF 9 Chronicles, part 1

Compulink system active.

Please, enter login and password.

Login and password correct. Access granted.

Accessing “NB-CHRN-1″ datafile...

READ ONLY

Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

12.04.419 AFE

Hm... This is my first personal log entry, and I don’t even know, what to write... Okay, I’ll... Ah!

Anyway, today, I was finally transferred into the Imperial Science Facility 9, as a member of a Operative Computer System Service Team. In short, sysadmin, maintenance man and programmer. At least planned salary makes it worth it.

13.04.419 AFE

Got to meet my new team. Still not sure what to think about them. On one hand, they’re pretty professional guys. On other... I’m not sure I’ll be ever able to become a part of that chaos.

14.04.419 AFE

Studying new equipment. It’s really awesome. Like, my new laptop has a huge flat multi-color screen instead of old small monochrome one one and has several orders more of power and memory! The only downside is that I have to learn a new version of an Universal Programming Language to stop being a mere “anykey-er”. Well, it could’ve been much worse. Also, transferred my log onto it.

16.04.419 AFE

The IDE is pretty cool. Graphic user interface, a lot of tools, automated version control, error detection system... Whoever has created it was a genius.

20.04.419 AFE

Today I saw a six-limbed walker MTU-2 robot fixing a some kind of a hazardous material leak in the Production Division sector, sumberged at least half-meter deep in the dangerous liquid. I swear, one of the arcanists (someone, named Izya), said something about how his team can create something much better and smarter with the help of arcane science. Whatever, I guess.

01.05.419 AFE

The first real work week is over. Worked with control systems of the nuclear reactor №3, which is still undergoing construction. Worked in the Surface Complex, helping bioscientists with automated climate-control systems for their above-ground labs. How can they stand so much Pokemon near them? Brr... Still, those “goggled” Alolan Dragon-Bugs (if I recall correctly, they are called “Flygons”) are cute... as cute as a 2 meter-long Pokemon can get. Ew.

04.05.419 AFE

Was working in the Physics Division sector today, fixing their local. Found guys using industrial microwave emitters, normally used for material processing, for heating up their lunches, as well as using autoclaves for pressure cooking. They also, apparently, use high-power vacuum chamber for drying their laundry. Weird. I’m scared to see, what the Production Division sector will hold...

05.05.419 AFE

My fears weren’t totally unjustified. In the Production Division sector, I’ve witnessed brawling MTU-2 robots (and those are 2-3 tons heavy!), using laser cutters to secretly engrave obscene words and phallus’ images into prototype devices, as well as, again, putting autoclaves, microwave emitters and some other devices to mundane use.

08.05.419 AFE

Worked in the Chemistry Division sector. I’m sure guys from the Lab 12 are up to something, since some of them often mention “distillation” and something, which is to be soon delivered to them from the Bioscience. How did I hear all that? Sometimes it’s great to be a simple maintenance man, who is just checking their computing equipment.

...

Compulink connection failure.

Restart?

Restart sequence initiated.

Connection re-established.

Continue from the last point?

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.

Let’s just hope there won’t be any global cataclysms and majestic aerodynamics-defying airships going down.

I just want you all to realize as of now, with the current state of pokemon go. We are ALL official living in pokemon 2000.

The great guardian LUGIA

Let me make thoughts more clear: Aether Foundation, despite all of their doings, was never called a Team (like the criminal ones). Only those groups of evil-doers, which were called Teams, received their respective versions of Pikachu Villains.

Pikachu Villain Figures from the Pokemon Center

You’ve misunderstood me. I know “Team” is not always evil, but, if you look at the Villain Pikachu line, there’s no non-criminal Team-affiliated Pikachu to be found. Because, technically, Aether Foundation is not considered a criminal Team, there is no Aether Pikachu.

Pikachu Villain Figures from the Pokemon Center

Yeah, I’ve totally forgot about the Type:Full project. IIRC, Wicke was intervening with Lusamine’s Ragyo Kiryuin tendencies, but was able to do only so much. She was the one, who’ve helped Gladion and Lillie to escape, by the way.

Second theory about lack of Aether Pikachu - because Aether Foundation was officially registered and considered as, well, Foundation, and not another criminal Team.

Pikachu Villain Figures from the Pokemon Center

Maybe, because Aether Foundation was never completely a villainous organization? It has started as a real Pokemon aid service, then Lusamine, sad about loss of her husband and high on Nihilego’s neurotoxins, corrupted and twisted it (maybe, not without drugging her subordinates with something to ensure their compliance), but, after her defeat, it reforms back into what it was originally. None of other teams had a history like this - they were villains from the very start of their doings.

Pikachu Villain Figures from the Pokemon Center

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Soris region, part 1.

To put it short, Soris is a hellhole. Such a hellhole, in fact, that even Orre region looks like a paradise in comparison with Soris. The best way to describe Soris is ((USSR*Australia*Detroit)+PanzerDragoonWorld)^PokemonWorld. In fact, “Harpoon” and “Ripper” rounds (which, most of time, provide victim with quick and very painful death, or at least give it serious injuries) for firearms, the very possession of which will get you jailed for many years in other regions, are perfectly legal here and can be bought in any weapon store for a small price. And that’s for a good reason.

Even before the Ancient Soris Empire, Soris Pokemon were far from cooperative, while remaining as powerful as you think Pokemon would be, so, living in Soris was somewhat like living in the Australia. When the Soris Legendaries had gone onto rampage and Ancient Soris War began, a lot of nuclear, arcane and even biological weapons were deployed, all in attempts of humans to survive. While these attempts mostly succeeded (humans weren’t wiped out, after all, and Legendaries were killed), Soris was horribly devastated. Because of how often Pokemon in this war used dimensional-controlling abilities (Teleport and like this) and how much arcane equipment and weaponry were used to combat it (incident in Solncegorsk city, for instance, where Unown tried to take advantage of the war and establish a hold in the real world, only to be destroyed by the mix of missiles with arcane warheads, loaded with Dark-type energy, and plain tactical nuclear missiles), today’s interworld connections in Soris are... far from good. Teleport is considered a good method of suicide (because after teleporting, user of this move more often than not becomes a bloody paste) and “reflection” of the region in the Reverse World is so mangled and distorted, that Giratina, when she (its psychological gender here is closer to female) saw it, decided “Screw this!” and simply warded off this area instead of trying to restore it.

The native Pokemon of Soris are very dangerous. From even before Ancient Soris War, they, when having above-average power (Pseudo-Legendaries were normal), very rarely wanted to cooperate with humans, but, at least, weren’t very agressive either. After the Ancient Soris War, however, they, under the aftereffects of such a devastation, changed into something much, much more deadly (it’s still not clear, if those were effects of deaths of the Legendaries or simple aftereffects of biological, nuclear, chemical and arcane WMDs). Today, Ground-type Pokemon with nearly perfect camouflage, appetite of Snorlax, aggressiveness of wild Hydreigon and Pseudo-Legendary stats are nothing special in Soris and can be easily found (though “easily found” often means “you see it before it kills you”) outside of the fortified cities and corporate Enclaves and are considered low-level threat. Yes, Ancient Soris War was something special.

Thankfully, introduced Alolan Flygons - the only species of Pokemon in Soris that were truly and really cooperative towards humans and the ones with crazy adaptational abilities - changed too (they aren’t called “Spirit of Change” in both Alola and Soris for nothing!), allowing themselves to survive in Soris. Today, Soris Flygons can be distinguished from their Alolan relatives by different shape of wings (somewhat longer and sharper), slightly longer and horizontally-forked antennaes (which are crucial to their Aura abilities), minor Aura abilities (short-range communication, “radar” and “darkvision” of sort), more omnivorous digestive system (life in Soris is harsh), more power and even greater adaptational abilities, which allow them to thrive in pretty much any environment - from forever colds of Alberia to the volcanic regions of Camcilia to the swamps of the Far East to the sandy deserts of Goli and so on... They also constantly migrate from one part of Soris to another in order to keep their adaptational abilities sharp and evade fate which struck their Hoenn relatives (forever locking in one forme). However, domesticated Soris Flygons will stay with their master. Also, there are some less dangerous tamed creatures, which, however, are not true Pokemon and were genetically constructed by the Ancient Soris Empire.

The most often-used land transport in Soris are different kinds of armored vehicles. Pretty often, they are simply APC/IFVs in civilian painting (guns remain how they were), but sometimes they use so-called “mini-cruisers”, which are segmented caterpillar-driven armored vehicles with articulated hull and tank-grade weapons on the front segment (kinda like Bogie from “The Third: Girl with Blue Eyes” anime), because they offer pretty decent protection, or heavily-armored big trucks, often modded from old ICBM carriers. Also, armored trains (with very characteristic and prominent sharp pilots, which ensure nothing stands on the way of the train) are used heavily. On the Grey Sea coastal line, some people use jury-rigged (but really good) buggies with deployable soft paraglider wing, mechanized rudders and propeller, which allow them to traverse both ground and (limited) air. However, they aren’t suited for long-range travels and are require solid driving skills to survive in the event of encountering local Pokemon.

The aerial transport is dominated with different armored planes, helicopters and airships (the ones based on SaL-12 “Charizard” Assault Ship Aerodyne are among the most-used), though Soris Flygons dominate short-range travels.

The water transport... let’s just say people would like to traverse this path on ground or in air far better. Hovewer, when such a need arises, armored boats with some depth charges and heavy weapons are put to use. In more peaceful zones (which are rare ones), local gangs can utilise airboats with heavy machine guns and some laser-guided rocket launchers.

The weapon regulation laws are... wait, there are next to none such laws for weapon regulation inside of Soris. Because of how deep into time Soris history of firearms goes (some designs can be traced up to 1000 years in the past, considering all the times, when technology gets lost and rediscovered), there are some restrictions on exporting and importing guns, but almost nothing about trading and using them in the region itself. It is for a reason - without guns, Soris people barely have ways to defend themselves (not counting Soris Flygons, but hey, those insect-dragons can’t do everything! Normal, non-Soris Pokemon, don’t live too long in Soris for reasons yet to be found, while some Soris Pokemon can live outside of Soris with no problems, but prefer to stay in their home region, bar Soris Flygons - they feel themselves nice everywhere, because their adaptability is crazy), especially with how in last 100 years Soris Pokemon started to become even more agressive and powerful for reasons yet to be found and neutralized. In Soris, you can legally purchase pretty much any gun as soon as you are 21 (though you need to pass tests first. Also, handguns, including 13x55mm caliber heavy assault revolver and rifles, can be bought from 18 onwards) and use any ammo for it you want (excluding nuclear, chemical and biological ammo). Yes, you can get anti-tank missile launcher too, if you can afford it and qualify as skilled user. However, laws about reckless use of weapons (shooting people, shooting wild Pokemon without good cause, property damage and such) are still in place. Yes, Soris is a hellhole.

Because of the reasons above, life in Soris (except for the Tunguska, which is, for some strange reason, pretty similar to the normal region like Sinnoh, though not without noticable traces of Soris influence, especially at the border with “true” Soris) is... actually, not that hard. Yes, you need to be good with guns, know at least basics of first aid, be able to quickly repair tech and so on, but there are next to no influence of the Official World State (Pokemon Nation), absolutely zero danger of Legendaries going rampant (they were killed for real in the Ancient Soris War) and, while most of the non-corporate fortress-cities are being ran by shady figures, they are more-or-less safe and nice (because they are all in the same boat - better be nice with your subordinates, so they’ll be nice with you in return, than be evil to them and one night a psycho, created by your regimen, goes rampant and kills lots of people one way or another. There were such incidents, which have even resulted in destruction of several fortress-cities, including two ancient ones - the ones which were built just 200 years after the fall of the Ancient Soris Empire!). Of course, “Pokemon League” is not a thing here, but is it such a price for a chance to survive in this region?

A lot of Pokemon Hunters in other regions originate from Soris’ gangs. Most of them prefer to use firearms, just like they did back home.

mrgrfan’s fanfiction and worldbuilding masterpost.

If you are interested in my writing, follow this post.

Shift Universe fanfic

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

Prologue: Once upon a time... - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/173057352382/past-of-the-future-future-of-the-past

Chapter 1: A new day, an old world. - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/173807895267/past-of-the-future-future-of-the-past

Chapter 2: Handshake above the skies. - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/176710301752/past-of-the-future-future-of-the-past

Worldbuilding: 

See “Ancient Soris Empire” below.

Mini-fics:

See “Ancient Soris Empire” below (only pre-Ancient Soris War mini-fics are canon to the Shift Universe).

Main-line fanfic and addendums:

First part (”Above the ground, nothing can tie me down...”) - https://ficbook.net/readfic/3693118 (in Russian, kind of old shame, but still canonical one. Also, protagonist is not the totally reliable narrator, just like everyone else bar me, as per “Word of God”, here. Finished.)

Second part (”I won’t let go tomorrow...”) - https://ficbook.net/readfic/4073788 (in Russian, follows the AU of the first fic. WIP.)

Woldbuilding

Corporations

Part 1 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156441613350/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-corporations-part

Part 2 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156677029022/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-corporations-part

Ancient Soris Empire

Part 1 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156770617137/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

Part 2 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156817576217/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

Part 3 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156951683842/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

Part 4 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157623819287/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

About Combatron-class assault robots - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170318922797/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-ancient-soris

Soris region

Part 1 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/163028327677/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-soris-region-part

Azoth Kingdom, cabinet Minister Alva

Part 1 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157057482987/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-azoth-kingdom

Part 2 - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157411917382/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-azoth-kingdom

Miscenallous

About Flying Palace’s Artificial Intelligence system - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/156641604612/some-worldbuilding-for-my-fic-flying-palaces

Mini-fics

Fics about Alva&co., in chronological order:

“Parents” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/158286557947/parents-mini-fic

“Promise” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157498025162/promise-mini-fic

“Equipment” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/162344275882/equipment-mini-fic

“Business” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/161365781312/business-mini-fic 

“Work” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/174123915647/work-mini-fic

Ancient Soris Empire fics (pre-Ancient Soris War are also canonical to the Shift Universe):

“Present” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/158601229917/present-mini-fic (Ancient Soris War, Soris)

“Re-entry” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/158604547977/re-entry-mini-fic (post-Ancient Soris War, Earth’s orbit)

“Fight”- https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170318925327/fight-mini-fic (post-Ancient Soris War, Kalos)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 1″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/166017047697/isf-9-chronicles-part-1 (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 2″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/166051922027/isf9-chronicles-part-2 (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 3″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/167061007667/isf-9-chronicles-part-3  (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 4″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/167565862097/isf-9-chronicles-part-4  (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“ISF9 Chronicles, part 5″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170430106887/isf9-chronicles-part-5 (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 1″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170162337092/memory-part-1-mini-fic  (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 2″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170278461467/memory-part-2-mini-fic (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 3″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170509068702/memory-part-3-mini-fic (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 4″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170551919297/memory-part-4-mini-fic (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

“Memory, part 5″ - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/170627399037/memory-part-5-mini-fic (pre-Ancient Soris War, ISF9)

Hunter K fics:

“Survival” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/162289238132/survival-mini-fic

Miscenallous 

“Code” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157684898832/code-mini-fic (from the POV of Flying Palace’s Artificial Intelligence system).

“Fear” - https://mgrgfan.tumblr.com/post/157957986722/fear-mini-fic (from the POV of Jorsey, Yveltal hatchling, who stays in the Flying Palace along with main fic’s protagonist and AI system)

Also, during the Johto arc, Satoshi recognizes Lugia. The only time he could see Lugia before it was during the events of the second movie. The same with Aura abilities from the Lucario movie - he uses them (albeit passive ones) to track down Riolu in “Pokemon Ranger! The Wave-Guiding Riolu!! (Part 2)”.

@bringsyouwings Just because Satoshi doesn’t remember/act like he remembers stuff from the movies doesn’t mean they don’t happen. He acts like that with stuff from previous episodes and nobody claims they don’t happen. I mean he was chased around by Dogas for how long and then had to look it up upon seeing one later. I’m also pretty sure he acts like he doesn’t remember Pokémon that HE’S HAD.

Yeah the Victini movie is a weird case but I imagine they still went to the same place and met the same people. That’s really the only one with any issue though. Even there being a second Mewtwo is covered since Masaki knows about the first one and there likely being a massive paper trail at Rocket HQ about it.

Equipment (mini-fic)

(Author's Note: this story was previously submitted to the villain story contest in @allhailpokemonvillains. Because the contest is over, I'm finally publishing it here.

Chronologically, it's set after "Promise" and before "Business")

- So, Levi, - started the cabinet minister in sinisterly gentle voice, - can you tell me, why there’s no VTOL gravplane on the aft landing pad of my airship?

- Well… - began his henchman.

- Twenty words or less, - taped Alva, gripping his staff harder and pointing it at the Levi.

- I’ve forgot to moor it after the scanning sweep in area, where bringing entire airship wouldn’t have been an option, so…

- Twenty, - stopped him minister. - Cherie - what’s your excuse?

- We were forced to commence emergency evasion maneuver soon after Levi's return, so, unmoored gravplane fell off the airship, - said the woman, looking at the sharp tip of the staff, which was now pointed at her. - At least it, during the fall, has collided with the Volcanion, which tried to attack us, and absorbed a decent part of its Overheat while simultaneously throwing its aim away, which is why we were able to bring the airship with barely working aft levitation engine here, back to the docks. If not for the gravplane, the ship would’ve been crashed wreck now.

-… OK, I accept this explanation, - replied minister, changing the grip position of his staff to the less threatening one. - After all, I saw the damaged parts of the airship. However, it does not change the situation, that, thanks to your doings, I’ve lost my private gravplane - not a cheap one, by the way, and almost lost my airship - a pricy one too. Had I ever told you “Now, these airship and gravplane are completely yours. Use them as you wish!”?

- No… - began Levi.

- Right, I never did such a thing. However, the gravplane is no more and airship is seriously damaged. What the time it is, when you come back with damaged equipment, no gravplane and no results?

- Third, boss, - said Cherie in exhausted voice.

- That’s right, you come back with no gravplane and no… Stop, you did come with some results this time! - suddenly cheered Alva, activating the projector, switching to the map of Azoth Kingdom's surroundings and pointing at it with his staff. - From what it looks like, Volcanion protects this specific region - even more specific, the Nebel Plateau. Each time you’ve tried to approach the Plateau, this Pokemon suddenly attacked you, as to if prevent you from ever getting a chance to perform a scanning sweep! Maybe, what it’s trying to hide is exactly what we are searching for.

- So… wait ‘till repairs are over and commence search-and-retrieval operation? But…

- No, not like that, - said cabinet minister with strange and menacing smile. - I’ll make sure airship gets some armoring this time and you… you will get the presents I was talking about for the long time already.

- MWDs? - asked Levi and Cherie at the same time.

- Yes, Mega Wave Devices, I’ve almost finished testing the final prototypes, so, in following months, you’ll get them along with Mega-able Pokemon. It’s kinda bad Hunter J has disappeared somewhere, so, I’ll have to work with either this new K girl or some smaller players at the black market… Anyway, you two are dismissed!

Alva’s henchmen has happily left his room, while the cabinet minister placed his staff away and took a tablet with a scanned images of Nikola’s design diagrams - specificially, Flying Fortress and Magearna.

“A year or so - and the kingdom will receive two rulers, which will finally guide it back to the ways of might and glory!” - thought Alva, analyzing the designs of the Soul Heart and the Fortress’ cannon’s power source’s cradle. - “And I’ll finally fulfill my promise!”

Survival (mini-fic)

Even before she has broken the protective shell of her egg, she could feel something wrong in the world around her. Unlike what it was supposed to be, environmental Aura streams were heavily distorted and plain wrong. Still, she knew that she couldn’t remain here anymore, so, a single strike of organic-metal spike broke a thick calcium shell, allowing small Emmanation Pokemon to enter the outside world.

She looked at herself. Not that she was completely sure, but wasn’t it supposed to be three fingers on her hand, not a four and a fifth opposed one? Could the Aura of this place do something to her? And... why she was thinking so clear for something barely hatched?

Suddenly, her “dreadlocks” felt something angry. Something, that was very interested in freshly broken eggshell and sure, that, whatever has hatched from it, wasn’t far away and would make a pretty good snack. She tried to “fade out” her Aura and took a refuge in ruins, full of sharp metal parts and unsure floors, made of concrete (she was still not sure, where from she knew all that, not nothing of it mattered right now).

She passively Aura-”looked” at her previous resting place and saw a big Pokemon, which radiated hunger and agression, take a look at all sides (literally, because it had three big compound eyes) and then, angry, devour what little was left of eggshell and small flying Pokemon, which has just happened to get near at the wrong moment, while cutting the second one in half with a short swing of razor-barbed tongue. When he left, she carefully returned and, feeling very hungry, finished the agony of what was left of the flying Pokemon and made sure the body won’t go to waste.

At this moment, she couldn’t guess it, but it’ll become her style of life for several next years - find the nearly- or freshly dead Pokemon, cut some of them with self-invented Aura attack and quickly consume it, before real predators or scavengers come nearby. While she had fur color far from being camouflage one, she has managed to make up for it with Aura - she could let world’s streams flow right through her, preventing anyone, who relied on Aura in receiving what was happening around, from detecting her, while also silently using her inner Aura to distort the light, silence the sounds and nullify the smells. She became the stealthiest being in this part of world.

Today was the day she got busted.

Despite all her Aura-based cloaking, despite all of her stealth attemps, one of the local Pokemon has managed to find out about her and, what was the worst, find her.

Now it was chasing her.

Her left leg hurt really bad from getting chemical burn from one of the spits. Because how it wasn’t coagulating, it was, probably, base, instead of acid (she never bothered to think about where from she was getting all of this knowledge - it sorta just happened to somehow get into her head in the least apropriate times). She knew she would be able to use Aura to heal it later, but right now, she couldn’t do a thing about it.

Now, she has managed to drive this to unfinished abandoned building, complete with metal sticks sticking out of walls and just laying here and there.

Suddenly, she tripped on one of those sticks and fell over, quickly trying to get back standing. She succeeded, but situation had already got from “bad” to “really bad”. 

Riolu saw, how a big, angry and strong Pokemon leaps at her, opening a huge maw with lots of sharp teeth, and, not understanding, what she’s doing, rose a big metal stick above her head, while closing eyes and cutting herself from Aura reception.

A monstrous squeak and dying roar of pain nearly destroyed her ears, but, somehow, she was still alive. After waiting for several more seconds, she slowly opened her eyes and looked at what have just happened.

The Pokemon, which wanted to eat her, jumped straight at the thin metal stick and got skewered on it. From what she could tell, he jumped just right to get his heart pierced, so it was of no wonder he died so quickly.

She could feel something strange, something building up in her. The death of this monster - the same one which has nearly killed her several years ago - made her feel some sort of a relieve and... Pride, for what she has done?

On this thought, she felt suddenly getting overwhelmed with some sort of a light, her body getting warped and changed. When it was over, she looked herself over, noticing the dense yellow fur and bio-metallic spike on chest, muzzle getting sharper, feeling the second set of Aura sensors, more power... and a huge hunger. The food was right here, impaled on the metal stick. After so many years of scavenging, she simply couldn’t let such a great fresh carcass go to waste.

After the meal time was over, she noticed something strange in herself. A strange emmanation, which have been present in her since her hatching here, has finally made it’s presence clear. It was dark, cruel, calculative, remorseless... but it was exactly what she needed to survive here, so, she completely embraced it.

Before finally leaving this place, she used several of her “Aura Cut” attacks to chop herself a decent part of this metal stick (”rebar”, as the name for it has suddenly appeared in her mind) and sharpen one of the ends of it. She couldn’t explain, but she felt it’ll help her great time in the future. She couldn’t help but wonder, why does it fit in her five-fingered hand so well.

A quick Aura-accelerated charge with rebar set before her - and prey’s heart gets pierced, ending the fight before it had ever began. A second decisive strike - and it’s mate dies with severed spinal cord. Since she has become Lucario, she finally stopped being a mere scavenger and became quite a death player here herself. While she still was not an apex predator here, she haven’t lost her stealth skills (in fact, she has continued at ever-enhancing them) and always knew when to fold her plans. However, she still never risked approaching groups of humans with firearms. While human bodies were fragile and could be destroyed with aa single maxed-out Aura Sphere or similar attack, their guns, loaded with something they called “Ripper rounds”, could quickly (and very painfully) kill most of the local Pokemon. Attacking humans was just not worth it, especially after how they’ve firebombed a place from air, after one of the mightiest Pokemon here had killed fifty humans.

She knew it was a trap.

Somehow, whoever stood behind those Pokemon and co-ordinated their doings, has lured her into this very narrow valley and locked her in it.

She stood proud, clenching the sharpened rebar in her left hand. Lucario knew, that it may be not of much use here, but she wanted to be ready to give her all.

Suddenly, she felt a human presence getting stronger behind them. It definitely was a woman, which, for some strange reason, wanted to see the fight with her own eyes (not without backing herself up with some Protects, several additional Pokemon guards and a firearm, of course).

She concentrated her Aura sense on this human woman... and saw something very dark in her soul. This darkness, while different from the one which gave the Lucario her power, was still somewhat familiar. This darkness brought understanding. There was no use in fight, because like has no need to fight like.

- I surrender, - sent a peaceful Aura message Lucario, while slowly lowering the rebar. - I sense no need in fight.

- Why is that? - asked human woman in somewhat defiant voice, but deep inside, the dark power in her soul became interested.

- Because you bear darkness, as do I. Even if they are different, like does not need to fight like. I think we can achieve something greater if we allow our darknesses to work together.

- Hm. You tell truth. Readings of my sensors tell me, that you are different from the normal Lucarios and your abilities are almost on par of those of the low-level Legendaries. Do you know, why is that?

- The darkness of this land has touched me. Changed me. Gave me the bliss of power, - replied Lucario, feeling some strange pride rising in herself.

- Yeah, you are the only introduced Pokemon I know who has managed to survive on border between Tunguska and real Soris, - said the human woman. - So, to Pokeball stage we go?

- I do not know what do you mean, but I’m ready, - replied Lucario, seeing, how human tosses the small spherical device with strange markings towards her, how this device opens, how her body slowly, but painlessly, gets warped and twisted in all ways possible and some, that are essentially impossible, then everything settles down and calms, then disturbance arises again - and she stands before human once more.

- Absolutely no resistance! - wondered human, looking at Lucario.

- Why should I resist something, that will allow me to unite my path with other bearer of darkness and help me achieve something greater? - calmly asked her Aura Pokemon.

- I’m happy about it, actually. So, do you understand, that from now onwards, you will obey all of my orders?

- I most certainly do.

- So the darkness in our souls will become one and open a path to something greater?

- Absolutely.

-... You’re the strangest Pokemon I’ve ever met. Anyway, nice to get you in my team. I assign you tactical designation “Blue Rapier”.

- I thank you for that. And... how should I call you? Mist...

- No, not this crap! - objected human, then gave the Lucario an evil twisted smirk. - Simpy “K” or “Commander” would suffice.

Business (mini-fic)

- Approaching designated randevu point! - announced Cherie, carefully pulling engine control throttles and making the Azoth Kingdom-built airship descend.

- Still nothing, boss, - reported Levi. - All radars give clear picture. By the way, the lateral turning motor of the main parabolic radar broke once again, looks like short-circuit. Any ideas why?

- Levi, did you forget to apply varnish? -  asked him Alva in exasperated voice.

- No, boss, I’ve triple-checked this before we’ve gone flight. You know, it’s kinda uncomfortable, when your main radar loses ability to turn and can only scan the last direction. Good thing it stopped at zero-zero.

- Then no ideas, beside obvious humidity build-up somewhere.

- There we are! - announced Cherie, flicking switches and putting the engines of the airship to hovering mode. - Anchored and ready!

- If not for your words and sensor readings, I’d have never noticed it, - said Alva in pleased voice. - Great piloting.

- Thanks, boss, - replied somewhat shy Cherie, checking the ship’s systems. - Everything’s normal, no scratches or like this, our girl is healthy’n’good.

- Besides the main radar. Sixth time already, - murmured Levi, then began to announce. - All radars...

Man’s voice faded when a huge signature suddenly appeared on all radars. Outside of the ship, a big airship, somewhat similar to the classic “Hunt-3R″, but bigger, with sleeker lines and more visible weaponry, de-cloaked and landed less then 300 meters from the airship of cabinet minister, two bow-mounted autocannon turrets aimed near the bridge.

- This ship looks like she was built by “Kirasawa Shipyards”, - finally managed to squeeze out a word Levi.

- But she wasn’t, - objected Alva, who was already studying the newcomer. - “Kirasawa”, most of time, puts external hangars and cargo containers, which often have more height that the ship herself, on the sides of main hull, while this one has containers half the ship’s height mounted between main hull and external engine pods. Also, bridge is too small and too deep into hull, and I never saw any ship from the “Kirasawa Shipyards” with that much weapons - those two turrets are definitely just part of point defence system.

- Boss, you know a lot! - said impressed Cherie

- I need to. After all, our kingdom continues to lose position on the airship market, and “Kirasawa Shipyards” is just after the corporations in the list of competitors. It’s like this ship was purposely built to fool those who know too little to think it was built by “Kirasawa”, but to let those who know style of those shipyards understand that it’s not... - Alva made a strange motion, as if shrugging something off. - Anyway, here they are, so I’m going in. Levi - open the hatch and prepare the elevator, Cherie - stay here, keep engines warm and ready. I feel far from good about this...

- Yeah... - replied Levi, remembering seeing records of the cabinet minister’s talks with this Hunter. While Hunter J, who has mysteriously disappeared not so long ago, was somewhat scary on her own, K...

                                                     ***

- So, cabinet minister of the Azoth Kingdom, huh? I’m happy to have such a client! - said woman with a jet-black hair, slowly moving across her small quarters, presumaby onboard of her ship. Levi couldn’t explain it, but something in her made him feel wrong and, from what it seemed, Alva too. For most of people, it would’ve been impossible to spot, but Levi knew his superior for long enough to notice he was nervous.

- So am I. Miss K, - Alva took an opportunity, trying to direct this talk into where he wanted it to go, - I want you to give me Pokemon from this list.

Cabinet minister quickly pressed some keys on his personal terminal, sending a message to her. Woman sat down on chair, reading the message without any hurry, then slowly rose from it and said:

- So, perfect stats; does not matter if Shiny or not; abilities, that work great together if those Pokemon fight side-by-side; some Egg moves; does not matter, if bred or hunted and all capable of Mega Evolution? Am I witnessing revolution, that is about to happen?

- I knew it’ll be obvious... - replied cabinet minister. - Sort of. Some of them will be needed for other, non-political purposes. And, if this info gets out...

- No need to worry, I never tell anyone about the details! - said K with somewhat menacing curved smile. - Contract privacy is contract privacy, no matter what. Also, I’m not into politics, as long as they don’t touch me. So, what about payment?

- Twenty millions total, ten - now, ten - after getting Pokemon.

- Fair enough. I’ll give you coordinates of the randevu point in two weeks. K out, - finished the talk woman and cut the channel. Alva opened a drawer, grabbed a small bottle of Azoth-produced “Cog Oil” whiskey, poured himself a shot and took it in a single long gulp. From what Levi saw in this recording, minister was still nervous about this K. Something in her was just plain wrong, but neither he, nor Cherie or Alva could point out, what exactly.

- It’s not like we have other options, - commented cabinet minister, stopping the video and shutting down his terminal. - She’s our best option now - both in price and quality.

- So, cabinet minister Alva, I suppose? - said one of the K henchmen, when Alva approached her airship, still feeling uncomfortable of CIWS turrets and her henchmen, which’ve already released their Pokemon to establish defense perimeter around her airship. - Commander K will be there very soon.

- Good, - replied cabinet minister, taking a closer look on the ship. Even now, he could see several characteristic coverings of missile tubes and two retractable machine gun turrets near the opened frontal hatch. For all of her worth, this ship could be easily classified as a full-fledged heavy assault ship. Considering, what kind of team was now guarding the airship, the implications were far from good.

- Glad to see you, - sounded beautiful, but, for some strange reason, scary voice. Alva turned back to the lowered frontal hatch and saw a woman with jet-black hair slowly walking down to him, carrying a small case.

- Same, Miss K, - said Alva in gentle voice, then pointed his staff at the case. - All of them? Loyalty imprinting?

- Of course to both, - responded Hunter, opening the case and presenting it’s contents to cabinet minister. Inside, there were 15 standard Pokeballs, lying in small holders.

- May I commit a small test right now? - asked her Alva, gently closing the case and taking it from her hands.

- If it does not mean injury or destruction of my property, - replied K, pointing to a small clear zone next to the starboard of her ship. Cabinet minister travelled to this spot and, surrounded by K’s henchmen, released the Pokemon one by one, then pulled his own Pokeball out of many pockets of his coat and added his own Gengar to this team.

- You can easily assault a palace and dethrone the king with team like this, - commented one of the henchmen.

- But they are not for it, - replied Alva, changing a grip of his staff and passing two fingers above the small dark-violet stone, embedded in the unusually shaped pommel. - Mega Wave!

- ... Can you sell a device like this to me? - asked amazed K, looking at 16 Pokemon, which were all Mega-Evolved at once. - I can pay up to a billion for a such a gadget!

- Not yet, - said cabinet minister, passing the fingers above the stone again, reversing the effect, then taking out two wristbands with similar dark-violet stones out of another pocket of his coat and unleashing the second Mega Wave with one of them. - They are fragile, dependant on Master Stone - one per several devices, have limited worktime until shutdown, require some time to relax between activations to prevent malfunctions, often need repairs... In short, there are still many problems with them. However, once I iron those problems out, I might consider putting them on sale - our kingdom will really benefit from it.

- Then I’ll wait, - responded K, seeing, how Alva, after three Mega Waves and successful testing of all devices, returned his Pokemon back into Pokeballs. - By the way - do you really need to say words when activating them?

- Yes, you need to, - replied violet-haired man, putting most of the Pokeballs, bar the one with his personal Gengar, back into the case and closing it. - I’m sure you won’t like it to suddenly activate just because you waved your hand the wrong way!

- Of course! - let a somewhat scary laugh Hunter. - So, what’s about the second part of payment?

- Right now, - said Alva, taking his PDA out of one of his pockets and tapping the polarized touchscreen, contents of which were invisible to anyone bar cabinet minister, several times.

- I see, - murmured K, looking at her own PDA. - However, I thought we agreed on ten millions! Of course, it’s pleasant, but...

- But I do appreciate the great quality of the Pokemon you brought to me and want to give you some bonus for such a nice work! - replied cabinet minister, giving Hunter a gentle nod and taking a case with Pokeballs in his hand. - Goodbye, Miss K.

- Goodbye, cabinet minister Alva, - said she, ordering her troops to return to the airship with a simple gesture and walking back to the frontal hatch. - I hope that some time later, you will be my customer once more.

- ...And I surely hope not to, - whispered Alva, once his was back aboard his airship.

- Boss, the K’s ship has gone flight and cloaked once again! - sounded the Levi’s voice in the intercom.

- That’s great, - replied minister, putting the case with Pokeballs on the wall bench and taking a seat on it himself. - Levi - close the hatch. Cherie - lift off and take us back home. I’ll be on the bottom deck for some time.

- As you wish, boss, - replied his two trusted henchmen. With hydraulic whirr, the cargo platform collapsed and hatch started to close, while airship started to to gain altitude. Alva spent nearly half of hour like this, but, after it, focused and took a trip back to the bridge, where Levi and Cherie were already waiting him.

- We’re glad to see you, - greeted him Levi. -"Chancellor Cocktail”, the one you like, in the cupholder. Temperature optimal and everything.

- Do you think of me like some kind of an alcoholic? - asked him Alva, placing the case and staff near his chair and then taking a seat, though not before ensuring, that control is all transferred to Cherie.

- No, boss, but we do see, how do you feel after speaking with... her, - shuddered woman.

-... You know what? You’re damn right! - replied minister, taking a shot. - Nice. Who was one preparing it?

- Me, boss, - said Levi. - Cherie couldn’t bring herself out of her seat all the time you were ashore.

- Levi, I just wanted to get out of here ASAP! - told him Cherie. - I’m sure none of us wanted to be there anymore than needed. Those autocannons and goons...

- Uh-huh, - said her co-pilot. - Cherie, by the way - would you like to try to pilot the assault ship of this K?

- Nah, I won’t exchange our little “Kamiya” for anything, - nearly purred woman, gently stroking the surface of the pilot’s station, - She serves us well and I’m used to her. Even her little cargo bay doesn’t mean anything - “Traveller-4″ class can take three time it’s own mass into air on external, and our girl was upgraded by our boss to be able to take four times her own mass.

- And the main radar breaks every two damn weeks after this damn second scanning run, when this damn Volcanion hit us with Steam Eruption, - grunted Levi. - Boss, I was outside and fiddled with it - yep, short circuit in secondary control scheme. I've replaced it and the corresponding circuit breaker, but this is a temporary solution. I think I know how to rework it, so it will at least break once in two months instead of every two weeks. Do you authorize me to do it once we are back home?

- I do, - replied Alva, making some notes in his PDA. - By the way - after we return to Azoth Kingdom, I give you two weeks of vacation and then you start training with MWDs and your new Pokemon.

- OK, boss! - said Levi and Cherie at the same time, then Levi continued. - About the Pokemon, boss - are you really happy with your purchase?

- I am, but I don't want to do business with people like that anymore, - murmured the minister before falling asleep from lack of sleep beforehand and today's stress. His henchmen exchanged looks, then continued piloting ship like if nothing happened, alllowing Alva to silently snore right on the bridge.

Robocraft again. Mothership with powerful EMP cannon and lots of combat robots with plasma launchers, subatomic machine guns, rail cannons, ion shotguns, Lock-On Missile Launchers, Aeroflak cannons (shells are detonated by the electron density trigger, no less!), chain rotary cannons, Tesla blades, blink modules, weapon energy modules, Ghost (invisibility) modules, EMP modules (to designate targets for Mothership’s EMP cannon), impenetrable 5-second disc sield projection modules, all-seeing radar modules (Windowmaker) and so on... I think I’m pretty dope.

There’s a small mistake about the Battle Pyramid - it has 5 rotors instead of four. The fifth one is hidden on the down side of the main hull of the Pyramid and can be observed during the crash scene.

Also, it isn't a dex entry, but I'd be curious to know what your thoughts are on possible flight systems for the airships we've seen in the series, in particular the Hikoukyuu, Megarig, and Battle Pyramid.

I’ll be honest–I’m not all that familiar with the anime. That being said, this question is so interesting, I just have to tackle it. I did, after all, run a whole week on Pokémon Flight–it only seems fair that I cover the man-made airships too.

The Hikoukyuu

The “Flying Palace” makes its debut in the second-ever pokémovie, Pokémon 2000. I had actually seen this one before I watched them for this post, although that was probably at least 8 years ago. The Flying Palace is the airship of the evil Lawrence, who seeks out to selfishly “collect” Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres.

The only flying mechanisms it seems to have are the tiny propellers attacked to the top and bottom of the craft–roughly 40 in total. It also has about 20 propellors along the sides.

Propellers work using Bernoulli’s Principle. Basically, they are shaped in a way that air must travel farther to go over them than under them, creating a pressure difference, and thus creating an upward force.

As far as I can tell, the propellers on the sides do absolutely nothing to lift it into the air. In my opinion, they are more likely wind turbines, harvesting the air rushing past and turning it into energy, to power the engines or supply electricity for Lawrence’s unecessarily large holograph machine.

You have to understand, this thing is massive. Quoting Bulbapedia, the Flying Palace is “about the size of a small city” and likely weighs at least 100,000 tons (200,000,000 lbs). To fly, the propellers must generate at minimum that much, or about 5 million pounds of lift per propellor.

Now, without even touching the math I can tell you without it that this is already incredibly ridiculous and there’s no way this thing could fly. Even if I considered the lessened gravity of the Pokémon Universe. It must use some other mechanism to fly.

I could say that it is actually in orbit above the pokémon planet, but we see multiple shots of the ship close to the ground, and it even crashes at the end of the movie.

I could say that it has some magnetic mechanism helping it out, but a field of that magnitude would serious mess up anyone near/inside the ship (since we are mostly made of water, a polar molecule), let alone destroy his equipment.

Yeah, no idea how this thing flies.

The Megarig

The Megarig (and its smaller sister ship, the Mecha Giratina) appear in Giratina and the Sky Warrior, piloted by the antagonist Zero and auto-piloted by the program called Infi.

The Megarig doesn’t fly, but rather appears to hover–more on that in a bit, but the more prominent feature about the MegaRig is that is possesses the ability to freely hop between the distortion realm and back through portals, much like Giratina.

To dimension-travel like it does, the Megarig must use some kind of wormhole. There are technically several different, totally acceptable mathematical models of wormholes. The problem is, in the realm of physics we currently understand, there is no form of energy good enough to keep the wormhole stable for more than a few microseconds.

There are several hypotheses that there is an energy–they call it “Exotic Matter”–that we don’t know of yet that could stabilize a wormhole. The Megarig is able to harness this, and create stable wormholes to jump between dimensions freely.

And, energy is energy. Because Exotic Energy does not interact with our bodies or any form of matter we currently have (like a magnetic field would), it makes a near perfect candidate for the Megarig’s hovering.

The Battle Pyramid

The Battle Frontier is great. The Battle Frontier in the anime is possibly even better. In the anime, the Battle Pyramid is a giant, flying hunk of metal that is constantly changing location. The location is only given to those who have defeated the other six challenges, and is the Frontier equivalent of beating the E4.

It flies through giant turbines attached to the pyramid. It reminds me a lot of Marvel’s helicarrier, recently in the Avengers films. Four massive turbines, one giant hunk of metal.

I’m going to assume that the Pyramid is about the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza, so about 140 meters tall and 230 meters each way along the base. The Great Pyramid (made of limestone) has a mass of around six trillion (6,000,000,000) kg, which I will also assume for the battle pyramid (made of some kind of metal).

I’m following this process, which took data from Boeing to see how big the rotors would have to be for this thing to fly. Even for Earth’s gravity (g=9.8 m/s^2), These propellers need a radius of around 6,000 meters to fly. I don’t know about you, but those propellers don’t look thirty times longer than the base of the pyramid to me.

But okay, my estimate for the weight was pretty big. A flying pyramid is probably not made out of heavy limestone blocks, but more likely some light material, closer to aluminum or carbon fiber. So, let’s work backwards here. The radius of the propellors look about ¼ the length of the whole thing. Let’s call it 60 meters. With that, the propellers can generate as much as 550,000 kg of thrust. As long as the Battle Pyramid weighs less than that, it can fly.

If it was made from Carbon Fiber, which has a density of 1600 kg/m^3, it might be able to meet this criteria. But only might.

Thanks for your question!

Michael Wilson speech transcript.

Source: https://youtu.be/ukRheSjjb34?t=5m26s

My fellow americans, good morning.

As americans, we love freedom.

But true freedom isn’t given, like the air we breathe, or the water we drink.

About 240 years ago, our forefathers fought greatly, giving their blood, sweat and tears, and in the end, they’ve won our freedom, and we must never forget this.

If anything appears, that threatens our believe in this freedom - we will oppose it, we will crush it!

In fighting to gain our freedom, we need no reasons. We require no just cause or flowering words. In order to protect our neighbors who love freedom and this faith in freedom, we continue to believe in our own justice. We won’t abandon any battles!

And the reason is, because we are all citizens of the United States of America.

And as long as you will allow it, I will be a vanguard leading this fight!

And the reason is, because I’m the President of these great United States of America!

Re-entry (mini-fic)

Six months.

For six months already crew of the “Space Lab Two” was working on pure inertia.

Because Soris Empire fell.

Their families, friends, relatives, co-workers - they were no more.

Killed by the rampant Pokemon, irradiated to death, evaporated in the giant thermonuclear blasts - it did not matter.

The only thing that mattered now was the supplies.

And they were running low.

- Captain, we’ve already overshot our goal by two months, - said the physicist, floating from one wall of the command module to another. - As for now, we have one week at most, then air reprocessors won’t hold anymore and will most likely fail - I told we needed to replace them three launches ago. Does anyone there want to suffocate to death?

- To be honest... - started the biologist.

- To flak with this pessimism, - harshly said the captain. - There are still people down there, so we may as well as try to get down and try to survive alongside them. Our death up there will be no use to anyone!

- Well, you’re top officer here, so, as you wish, - responded the pilot. - However, there are no infrastructure left to meet us, so, we have to de-orbit our return vehicle in such a way, so we’ll land somewhere near the survivors.

- Do you think it’s such a big problem? - asked physicist. - Even if we, for some reason, won’t use our own surveillance telescopes, we still can communicate with the recon satellite network and get all data we want from them, so, finding the good landing place shouldn’t be that hard. Re-entering the atmosphere and landing, however...

- I can work on that, - said the pilot. - Of course, autopilot shall do most of the job, but, in the event of something, we need to be sure we’ll actually land our and not commence unplanned lithobreaking. Even if our return vehicle is, basically, renamed... 

- Work on it tomorrow. Right now, everyone goes into gravity wheels and takes a nice, long sleep. We need to calculate how to bring twenty-five humans back to Earth safely. We need to get everything ready for it. We will not be able to properly do it in such an exhausted state, so, put these caffeine drinks away and go snore a bit.

-... So, deorbiting at this points shall be fine, - murmured the captain, plotting the course for the return vehicle. - The secondary data pod shall be ejected at this point and then station will commence transfer to the junkyard orbit. Vasilyev - had you located the survivors enclaves?

- Yes, I’ve had, you can see them here, - responded the crewmember, marking several points at main display. - As you can see, we can correct our landing course in the atmosphere itself, so, detaching the return vehicle from the station here shall be fine enough. Also, all of the “Overlord of Skies”-class airships have been destroyed, the most recent one - “Researcher-2″ - crashing in Kalos, and, considering the radiation scans, because of some sort of a reactor failure. It’s good thing satellite network is still kicking.

- Not so good, - said communications operator. - We can’t manually order heavy recon and repeater satellites to fire the engines and transfer themselves to graveyard orbits.

- Do you think...

- Yes. If something goes wrong, satellites will de-orbit and disintegrate upon re-entering atmosphere. And, as you remember, they are powered by the nuclear fission reactors...

- Just like the our station now, since the parabolic mirror was destroyed. Well, shouldn’t they fire engines if automatics onboard detect something going wrong with reactor, such as meltdown or running low on fuel?

- They should, and they also should auto-correct orbit, but, if system goes offline or, what’s even worse, nuts, we’ll have radioactive nuclear fuel sprayed across the world.

- But ISF9 automatics rarely, if ever, fail, - taped the captain, trying to prevent panic. - Besides, it’s not like we can do something about it, so let’s just hope for the best. What about our return vehicle?

- Good, comrade captain. After some tweaking, according to the pre-written instruction for that exact kind of situation - apparently, our guys in FCC were quite paranoid - we’ve modified interior of the lenticular return vehicle to be able to safely house all twenty-five peoples for entirety of return and landing procedures. A bit cramped, but better that, than nothing. What we’ll do with normal 3-seated return pods, though?

- They’ll stay here. After all, there’s no infrastructure left for retrieval operations. the LRV can guide where it lands pretty good, these can’t.

- Goodbye, “Space Lab Two”. We will greatly miss you, - said the pilot, looking in the return vehicle’s main window. The space station, jewel in crown of the Empire’s space program, was left by it’s crew forever and was programmed to eject an emergency data pod at the marker of the landed return vehicle, so knowledge will be preserved. - Proceeding as normal, four hours until touchdown.

- Acknowledged - replied physicist, still thinking about the fate of the space station. - Station will fire engines and transfer to the graveyard orbit in ten orbital periods, secondary data pod ejection will be commenced in three periods.

- Good, - said captain. - Let’s hope this snake-dragon-missile-thing - the green one...

- It’s called “Rayquaza”, comrade captain, - taped the biologist.

- Whatever. So, let’s hope it does not commence orbital interception of our lenticular return vehicle.

- And it applies to our station and satellites too, - grunted comm operator, looking at the map with locations of recon and repeater satellites. - I’m sure no one will like reactor’s active zone dispersed all across the region...

The streamlined lenticular return vehicle fired the small frontal engines and slowly sailed away from the huge station, which has already stopped rotation of the giant centrifugal gravity wheels. then turned and fired main thrusters, decelerating and starting the atmospheric re-entry sequence, while the Space Lab Two continued to silently perish, deactivating life support systems, which were not needed anymore, one after another, and preparing to shut down the reactor as soon as it gets to the graveyard orbit.

- Mom, you’ve told me, that seven years ago, our village’s elder died upon gazing at the shooting star and said some strange words. What did he say?

- Something like “recon”, “re-entry”, “disintegrating” and “all across the...”, upon saying which he died.

- What did it mean?

- Who knows, dear, who knows. After all, he came from the time, when humans made great things, discovered the basis of life itself, cracked the uncrackable and even flew beyond the skies...

Present (mini-fic)

- How much more? - asked military engineer his comrade, continuing to walk upstairs.

- Ten more stories and that’ll be it, - responded the grenadier. - By the way, do you know, what the flak this crystalline shit is? It’s nearly swallowed the city! Good thing we still have this skyscraper far enough from the target to install lased designator on and be sure it wont go down after the strike, bad - our Flygons are no more...

- About those crystals - brainheads said something about psychics, living sigils and such, but the only thing concerning me is how we will deal with this. As if these flakkers rampages weren’t enough... Now we also have to deal with some Johto weirdass crap. Wait, did you hear that?

- “Stop right away!”, in some ghostly voice? I did, - said the grenadier, readying his revolver grenade launcher. - Whatever it is, we still have our mission. Is laser designator ready?

- Ready, ready. I still wonder, how Givi has managed to modify old laser rangefinder into a designator for missiles?

- The same way, as you’ve called them, “brainheads” modified weather rockets into some kind of a ballistic missiles. By the way, WTF is loaded into their warheads?

- Some arcane... nuke... whatever it is, it’s flakkin’ complicated. I do remember they use both nuclear fission and something arcane. Six missiles shall be enough to carry a decent payload.

- Agreed. Did you see that? - whispered soldier, quickly turning and shooting dangerous Pokemon with buckshot charge.

- Flakkin’ illusion, - barked engineer, seeing, how the figure dissipated after being hit. - Let’s hurry up, these crystalline shits are psychic and growing out of control!

- Flak, I’m running low on buckshots, - said grenadier, placing the grenade launcher on his back and taking the SMG into his hands. - And I don’t wanna get ourselves killed with shockwaves or waste corrosive munition on phantoms!

- Do your best, ‘cause these flakkers can actually attack now, - responded engineer, wiping blood from his eybrow. Mere seconds ago, a huge phantom attacked him and nearly slashed his neck open with pseudo-material claw. Thankfully, several bullets or a single buckshot grenade launcher charge were able to make them dissipate, but sheer ease, with which these phantoms were appearing, put survival of two soldiers and mission success under question.

-There we are, - happily said grenadier, reloading his primary weapon. - Zheka - put this flakkin’ designator down and lase the target.

- Here it goes, - whispered engineer, deploying the device and flipping the switch on it. - Givi, Ashot, Alexei - target’s being lased, how’s secondary radio guidance signal?

- Crystal clear! Five more minutes - and it’ll be very hot at the impact point! Evacuate and get ready to watch the fireworks!

- Evacuation impossible, foe possesses psychic abilities, can destroy designator. Requesting permission to hold on and protect designator until missiles fly.

-... Permission granted. Guys, try to make out of it alive.

- We’ll try our best, but no guaranties, except for providing guidance. Foe has some great psychic powers.

- Just how much more of them? - roared the grenadier, firing another HE grenade at the group of phantom Pokemon. - Zheka - hang in there, I’ll try to hold’em in the corridor!

- OK, Sasha! So, flakkers, do you think humans’ll go down easily?! SUCK ON MY HOLLOWPOINT BULLETS!!! - screamed engineer, letting his assault rifle loose on the phantoms. While he succeeded in destroying most of them, one has still managed to get in close and nearly cut him in two. While his attempt has mostly failed, Yevgeniy still got a huge deep slash across his chest, in addition to all of the previous wounds. - Shit...

Engineer, having no more power to stand upright, collapsed, but dragged himself near the laser designator and braced for firing his rifle from this position.

- Sanya, Zheka, here it goes! Get ready to receive the present! - suddenly sounded happy Givi’s voice from the radio.

- Flakkin’ finally! - whispered the bleeding soldier, looking at the window and seeing, how six yellow dots appeared near the horizon and started to speed to the designated point. Mere minute after, these dots revealed themselves to be ballistic missiles, three of which were going to target significantly faster, than the rest. Engineer saw, how these missiles exploded just before phantom Pokemon and crystalline storm would be able to intercept them and released a titanic amount of arcane Dark-type energy, causing phantoms to vanish and crystalline matter to darken and fall into dust.

- Here goes the second wave - cackled the grenadier, watching, how remaining three missiles flew to the lased point and exploded in the storm of atomic fire, hotter than hundreds of Magcargos and brighter than thousands of suns.

- Good thing we have those helmets and goggles. - said Yevgeniy, seeing his comrade ducking alongside him under the window to avoid getting burned by the intense light. - Just how much kaboom they’ve managed to put in them?

- From what it looks like, 50 kilotons or so per missile. By the way, Zhek, what do you think will kill us first - wounds or radiaton sickness?

- Well, judging from how close we were to explosions, how the building has somehow managed to hold solidly and protect us from overpressure wave and how my rad-meter is fried, my bet’s on the radiation sickness. Also, how we didn’t die from so much radiation instanly?

- Who knows. I don’t think we will be able to get to the brainheads in time to ask them, and our radio is fried as well. OK, now the target’s being... - grenadier peered at the window, seeing nothing more than boiling magma-like mass and no traces of crystals, phantoms or any Pokemon for that matter, - completely annihilated and us being in less than two days from death, how about a last game of preferans? I’ve got some cards in my pocket!

- OK, hand’em over! - laughed engineer, taking cards in his hands.

Parents (mini-fic).

- Well, that’s it for today! - said cabinet minister Alva, closing the old book. - Your majesty, your homework - assemble the levi-drone and program it to avoid obstacles during the flight on determined path. Next lesson will be in two days.

- Understood, minister Alva! - happily responded prince Raleigh. The cabinet minister gave him a smile, left the prince’s room and headed for his own one, slowly drifting in his thoughts...

"Why they can’t spend more time with me?” - asked young Alva himself, slowly reading “Introduction to Arcane Science”. - “Am I less important to them, than arcane researches? Or...”

- Happy birthday, Alva! - said Ogden, giving his son a present. - Sorry for so little time, but, as you know, our salary...

- I know and I understand you, - replied boy, slowly unwrapping the package. - Wait, is it...

- Yes, it is, - proudly said Nancy. - “Young arcane researcher’s first kit”.

- But it’s so expensive... How much... What... Why...

- Alva, you’re our son, - announced both Ogden and Nancy at the same time, - and we want you to be happy. About money... It’s not that important. Again, forgive us from spending so little time with you, but...

- Thank you so much... - responded the young boy, who was on verge of crying. As he knew, this kit costed nearly thrice the dad’s salary, so, they should’ve either started saving money no less than few months ago, or overwork. From what it looked like, it was the second cause. And they did this just because they’ve wanted their son to be happy...

- Prince Raleigh, why are you crying? - gently asked cabinet minister young prince, who was silently sobbing in the far corner of the library. - If it makes you feel better, I promise, that I won’t tell it to anyone.

- Dad... I’m not sure if he still remembers that I exist, - angrily whispered boy. From what it looked like, he just couldn’t keep it in himself anymore. - Sister loves her jetbikes more than her own brother... And mom, the only one, who loved me...

Raleigh couldn’t see it, but Alva’s grip on the staff became harder. His parents may’ve spent too little time with him, when he was child, but, at least, they’ve truly loved him and wanted their son to be happy.

- My condolences, prince Raleigh, - said cabinet minister, looking at the book, which was placed on table before prince. - You’re interested in the arcane science?

- Yes, and what? - harshly replied boy, showing, that his closest relatives didn’t share this kind of interest.

- Nothing special, prince Raleigh, I’ve just wanted to say, that I’m an arcane researcher and can provide help in it to you, if you want it.

- Really? - asked Raleigh, looking at cabinet minister with hope in his eyes.

“Just how alone is he?” - asked Alva himself, while giving a smile to prince and saying:

- Of course.

- Great work, but there are some mistakes, - said Alva to Raleigh, checking his homework. For more than year now, Alva was pretty much giving free private lessons in arcane science to young prince and, from what it looked like, neither king nor Kimia cared. - Looks like we need to perfect your math first!

- If we need it, I’ll do my best! - responded Raleigh whole-heartedly. As Alva has understood, he was pretty much the only friend of young prince, his closest men... and that the plans about overtaking kingdom needed to be re-written. Raleigh may never know it, but he was the one who deeply softened the cabinet minister’s heart and prevented a chain of planned political assassinations.

“When we overtake the kingdom, you will be the one, who will bring it might and prosperity, and I... I’ll help you do it,” - thought Alva, looking at young prince’s work and explaining him his mistakes.

“From what it looks like, I’m more of a parental figure to Raleigh, than the king,” - finished his chain of thoughts Alva, putting the staff aside, taking the place in the chair, pressing the “Door lock” button on the remote, opening the drawer and taking an old photo from it.

Weird dream is weird... yet again.

Several weeks ago, I’ve had another weird dream. Again, it was more-or-less random, though this time it was kinda “justified” by me loading “saves” in it. Among many scenes, which include flying helicopter in Airstrike 3D-like dream game, dealing with someone in warehouse on the second “playthrough” (I knew this time warehouse will be flooded, so I’ve took diver goggles. Don’t ask, it makes sense in context) and such, but there was one even weirder moment.

After loading one of the “saves”, I’ve found myself in some sort of clinic with eqiupment looking like it was from... later 80′s I think. In one of the rooms, there was an old man, who was giggling and such and looked like a little loony. On the table near his bed, there were several albums with rough drafts and blueprints. When I’ve took one of the albums, I’ve found it was mostly filled with my own drawings (and I’m pretty bad in it. Like, really bad.), but among them, there were this man’s drafts and even sort of blueprints for, guess who? Magearna! Even more, this man, for some reason, was calling her “quartz grandma”. Сould it be Nikola, who was somehow sent back in time into the Ancient Soris Empire and had gone crazy? Who knows.

What will he think of cabinet minister Alva?

I wonder how well Jirarudan would get along with some of the other bad guys. I think he’d take a shine to Molly but since he has only the vaguest concept of interpersonal skills I wager Spencer would ask him to leave. He’d also get along wonderfully with Lysandre because art and beauty and technology and holograms, but talk of politics and the world would bore him greatly and thus he’d avoid falling in with Flare because he just doesn’t give two shits about those things (and also he looks horrid in red). He’d get about five seconds into a conversation with Cyrus before realizing that the man has no artistic appreciation. The thieves from the fifth movie would probably just scare him (especially since they seem to have been reading up on him).

Fear (mini-fic).

A little one. He was alive for several months only, yet he already knew lots of feelings. However, only four were strong enough to actually matter.

Love

He loved his daddy very much and, from what it looks like, his daddy loved him too. Jorsey knew, that they were very different, but paid no attention to it. It was enough that his daddy loved him and he loved his daddy.

Curiosity

He was always curious, what his daddy was doing. Sometimes he was walking in the big round hall, looking at the different things, placed near the walls, and at the four huge bird-like Pokemon, suspended in some kind of energy fields, generated by the encasing metal structures. Daddy told him that, one day, he may need his help during the negotiations with the big white-and-blue one - Lugia, which he called “Waters Great Guardian”.

Happiness

He was happy when his daddy was happy. He was happy when his daddy finished another project. He was happy when daddy got something new into the collection. He was happy, when he drained all the life from passing Pelipper with a single attack, which his daddy dubbed as an “Oblivion Wing”. It felt as a right thing to do. Of course, he would never do such a thing to his daddy.

Fear

He was very afraid of the mind of the home, which, normally, was helping daddy in his doings, but hated little Yveltal with passion. He knew, that she always watched him through these things, which daddy calls “CCTV cameras”. She said to him in plain text, that, if he ever does serious damage or kills his daddy, she will make sure to completely destroy him, even if it’ll mean cessation of her existence. She was everywhere in this flying home. There was no hiding from her. There was no escaping her. The only reason he was still alive is because his daddy wanted it. She knew all of this and she still wanted him destroyed. She was not afraid to use something, which, according to what his daddy has shown him and what he heard from both daddy and her, generated incredible amounts of energy and worked on principles more basic than universe itself. The little Yveltal was very afraid of her. In fact, the main kind of nightmares he had so far was where his daddy was dead, like from the Oblivion Wing, and she was coming to take his life in revenge for her master’s death. And, unlike him or daddy, who was called “Lawrence Gelardan the Third”, she had no name, as if she had no need in it. She was everywhere. She wanted him removed from existence. He could do next to nothing about it. And he was very afraid.