AETHER VS. ULTRA

[indigo_league]

Who: The Aether Foundation, the Ultra Beasts, and YOU!
Where: Aether Headquarters on the Sevii Islands.
When: October 30th-31st, immediately after the Emergency News Bulletin
Summary: Showdown at the Aether HQ! The Ultra Beasts have found what they were looking for...
Rating: PG for action violence.
Log:


If there's one thing that can be said about several weeks straight of chaos, it's made the general response-time of rescue teams and emergency services across Johto and Kanto alike extremely quick. Within moments of the urgent news bulletin regarding the Aether HQ going live, relief efforts start taking off from every feasible point. With volunteers eager to watch the Aether Foundation go down in flames help any way they can hopping on board with the rescue forces, aid is coming, and fast.

... But not as fast as them.

At the exact moment of the broadcast, almost as though heralded by some unknown frequency, every Ultra Beast in land, sea, or sky drops whatever they're doing and turns their heads (or... headlike appendages, in most cases) to the south. And then they'll take off, pausing ONLY if they happen to have befriended a human or two over the weeks. These ones will gesture-- beckoning, dancing, even dabbing (because you KNOW at least one person taught one to dab)-- anything at all that they may have picked up throughout the month in order to communicate with the "aliens" they've met in this world.

Wherever they're headed, they want their strange allies to come with them.

And, if their invitation is accepted, they will sweep a trainer or two right off their feet and shoot off for the Sevii Islands.

_______

The temporary Aether Foundation HQ, a rather advanced building considering it went up in a matter of weeks after they first arrived that year-and-a-half-or-so ago, sits on the water's edge with its floating Pokemon sanctuary (which many consider to be the Foundation's crown jewel) neatly attached.

It's normally a pretty peaceful place, with volunteers coming and going as they please. While no small amount of property damage and general chaos has gone down on the mainland over the course of October, at no point had the marauding Beasts launched a concentrated, or indeed deliberate-seeming, attack against any one location at all.

This is clearly no longer the case.

An explosion sends billowing smoke (and a fancy white golf-cart) high into the air above the palm trees surrounding the building. Local islanders and wild Pokemon spill onto the beach to escape what has seemingly become an all-out warzone between Aether agents and Ultra Beasts of all shapes and sizes...

But while there is definitely fighting going on, taking a closer look will tell anyone that the Beasts are focused mainly on the building... and not just destroying it, either. The battering they're delivering seems to be with the intent to find a way inside, only stopping to attack humans and Pokemon who try to get in the way.

But why?

What's in there?

Whatever it is... those Aether agents who haven't already fled aren't keen to let anyone, human or Ultra Beast, too close!



[Happy Halloween! See the updated info post for more info... and comment below to join the fray...]

Comments

[marmoron]

When you say those three unknown pokemon ... which ones are you talking about? I know there was an incident with the jellyfish before and then the Ruins of Alph incident happened. What's the third? [it's been a while since they've spoken and armin might notice keith's looking older and has that scar on his face now since the last time.]

[schachmeister]

[Armin has seen Keith older before, so in a way, he's looking more like the Keith he remembers.]

I'm talking about the small ones. They don't have any names yet, but it's the little white and red rabbit, the green monkey and the blue lizard. Right after the crash, a lot of them suddenly swarmed everywhere, but I think they've all been caught by now.

Those were the pokemon the volunteers were taking care of inside that dome.

[marmoron]

[ah, so he was totally off then. understanding clicks into place and then:]

Huh. So that's where Annie got that little guy.... [a beat.] Just thought they were always here. But if they were originally pokemon cargo from another reality, then no wonder Aether's been keeping an eye on these guys.

[but perhaps more importantly:]

But according to this whiteboard, they've already got the creature that caused the plane to crash in "containment." But why'd they hide that?

[schachmeister]

No, they just suddenly showed up out of nowhere. Which, to be fair, has happened before, but never like this. [Armins shakes his head for a moment.] I know this will sound totally unbelievable, but it is apparently not unheard of for new pokemon to just suddenly appear in this world. They just turn up on routes everywhere overnight and act as if they had been there all along. But usually, the gear will register those pokemon. I've never had it happen like this, where even after months, our gears still don't give any information on these new pokemon.

[Armin loves living in this world, but he can admit it is kind of whack sometimes.]

Hmm. Maybe the way they caught it isn't... exactly the sort of thing people would approve of in this world?

[marmoron]

Okay, that's.... weird. What do you think is different about these guys?

[it's the first time he's heard that and it's really driving in the point that his relative apathy to learning new things about the world on account of having his memory of the place wiped clean before has left him with some really annoying gaps in his understanding. it's something he's gonna have to remedy once the aether foundation isn't on metaphorical fire.

his brow furrows further in thought.]

From what I gather, it looks like some legendary bird showed up to fight whatever showed up and the Aether foundation hauled it away after, I assume, it fainted in battle.

[schachmeister]

I wish I could say. I've never noticed anything off about mine. At least, not anything that couldn't be explained by him being involved in a crash.

[Artie doesn't like battling, but hey, Armin has other pokemon like that. He's, honestly, a wimp, but wouldn't you be after going through all of this? And sure, he still hasn't let Armin catch him, but as far as he can tell, other people have been able to catch them without problem, so that doesn't seem to be anything related to whatever species Artie is.]

Judging by the picture, that looks like Articuno. Which might mean that whatever the Aether Foundation are keeping here might also have something to do with its injured wing.

[Which could be another reason why the foundation hid whatever is down below from the public.]

[marmoron]

[on the one hand, maybe that's something worht putting the illuminati hat on over. on the other hand, this place has a lot of weird discrepancies surrounding pokemon that if you kept picking at all of the logic holes you'd just lose your mind. keith frowns, uncertain over what to think there.]

I see. [no, he really doesn't, but does anyone actually see.]

Wait, so Articuno only had a wing injury? it didn't get the color drained out of it like Suicune?

[schachmeister]

Its wing was drained off its colour, but unlike with Suicune, it was limited to just that area.

[He frowns.]

I don't think anyone has seen Articuno since then, so it's impossible to verify the lack of colour somehow spread across its whole body. Then again, when Suicune suffered its injury, it happened all at once. It might be whatever is causing this didn't manage to fully hit Articuno.