I Know It, Especially His Not-omnipotentness (and When I See A Fic With Arceus Almighty, I Immediately

So I’ve got a goal of $450.

I’m willing to take on simple character art like what’s shown to reach that goal, as it’s quick and fun for me to do. These are images used for an RP on Discord but you can use yours for anything you want. 

Simply DM me a character, and a paypal email address for an invoice!

She’s a Rule 63 version, not 34! Rule 34 says that there is always a porno about this, and Rule 63 says that there is always gender-swapped version of this character.

Ok since last time almost everyone focused on the bosses, let’s go a bit different. Huggability rating, movie baddies.

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.

Colress is worst (like he just saw keyboard yesterday), James is the best (he can do this with closed eyes and he turns this into ART!)

Who does it better?

No, neither original Lawrence nor accidental traveller are involved in warfare of any sort. Yes, real Jiri HAD developed a number of weapons, but he did it just for the sake of art (yes, he may be slightly OOC in this, but I got this thought from Hikokyuu’s weapon system - a mortar artillery with that high precision requires true scientific genius to create it, and just look how it looks and how it’s installed in Hikokyuu), and accidental traveller simply continued this, but went more in programming (he created an Euristic Operating System (simplified AI, optimised for euristic algorithms usage to ensure it’s ability to operate on non-supercomputer hardware) for unmanned fighters, and yes, he was an Einhander fan, so this he named this system EOS UFG Mk 1 (google “Einhander EOS fighter” to see his source of inspiration). Also, I’ve had a look back and found, that true Jiri prefers to put down his second name because of personal reasons, which aren’t strictly linked with family (a small backdoor left by me, so any can think about original Lawrence the way he/she wants and I will still have an ability to develop Jiri’s backstory at any moment).

@mgrgfan let’s talk ships. So, we both seem to be in agreement that the Hikoukyuu is for the most part fully automated. Though how it would land…you do propose an interesting idea, but that would suggest either that all landing pads are specifically built for that one ship or that there are other nearly identical ship out there.

The problem may be not with phone itself, but, instead, with battery charge controller. Try rebooting your phone and make sure there are no energy-heavy apps running, such as a Pokemon Go, Pokemon Duel or like it, and, if this fails, try to turn phone off and let it charge for a while before turning it back on and checking progress. If there is no charge buildup, swap charger for another compartible and if this fails as well - there are, probably, big problems with the battery.

There’s something wrong with my phone. It’s plugged in, says it’s charging, but loses battery.

Okay then... how about we look at the lesser-known USA-first achievements, then?

First superheavy launch vehicle that worked and didn't blow up (Saturn V). 

First reusable piloted spacecraft and the first spaceplane (X-15).

First pilot-controlled space flight (Freedom 7)

First orbital human space mission that landed with pilot still in spacecraft and thus the first complete human spaceflight by FAI definitions (Friendship 7)

First rendezvous and docking in orbit (Gemini 8 - Agena Target Vehicle)

First successful orbit of different planets (Pioneer 10 mission).

First solar orbit (Pioneer 5).

First and second and third interstellar craft (Voyager 1, Voyager 2, New Horizons).

First manned maneuvering unit (Gemini 4)

First multi person multi spacecraft mission in space (Gemini 6).

First orbital vector adjustment to pinpoint precision (Gemini 6)   

First spy satellite (Corona KH-1)

First successful recovery of film from an orbiting satellite (KH-1 film return bucket)

First aerial recovery of an object returning from Earth orbit (KH-1 film return bucket)

First pinpoint landing on the Moon (Surveyor 1).

First manned orbit of the Moon (Apollo 8).

First human-crewed spaceflight to, and orbit of, another celestial object: the Moon (Apollo 11)

First rover on Mars (Sojourner)

First spacecraft to orbit Mars (Mariner 9).

First reusable orbital-class spaceplane (Space Shuttle).

First solar powered satellite (Vanguard-1)

First communications satellite (Echo 1, Telstar)

First weather satellite (TIROS)

First satellite in a polar orbit (Discoverer 1)

First geosynchronous satellite (Syncom 2)

First satellite navigation system (Transit)

First Mars flyby (Mariner 4)

First human spaceflight that escaped Earth's influence (Apollo 8)

First X-ray orbital observatory (the Einstein Observatory)

First Jupiter flyby (Pioneer 10)

First Mercury Flyby (Mariner 10)

the space race may be the funniest point in history period and i'll stand by that. the US is like "yes whoever gets into space first will prove once and for all that our economic model is superior and that we are, in general, the superior country of superior and smarter people." then the soviets just went and did it and the US freaked out and needed to cover their ass so were like "WE MEAN THE MOON, WE MEAN THE FIRST TO LAND ON THE MOON."

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.

To be honest? It’s hard to say, what’ve got me interested in Jirarudan, but his charisma and cool airship definitely have something to do with it.

By the way, when we were discussing warfare and weapons, I’ve forgot to mention, that corporations produce heavy weaponry, deploy aircraft carriers, armed satellites and such as a part of theirs doctrine of a guaranteed retribution, which I’ll explain later. By the way, one of the reasons, why they’ve started to partially replace their’s seaborne aircraft carrier fleets with airborne ones is, to quote a future chapter, “At least you can see what the heck is coming from below and strike back.” (this speaker means agressive water Pokemon, which are well-known for sinking ships, and the fact, that AAC’s have point defence system weapons at all sides, including bottom, to ensure coverage from all directions).

Now about technology - unlike rest of the world, General Industries and Tunguska Technologies (TungusTech) prefer NOT to use Pokemon as much as possible. Where police will order Machamp to break the wall, corporate special task force will use a breaching charge, deploy a heavy assault exoarmor (think of a power armor from the “Starship Troopers” book, only less nukes and flight and more frontal firepower) or even the armorsuit (essentially, small mecha, most of which are slightly shorter than the AMP Suit from the “Avatar” and pack a lot of a firepower along with good melee abilities). Where normally Machokes will be unloading the cargo, corps will use some kind of a power loader, often fully automatic. Where most of people will use Pokemon for one thing or another, corporates will try and replace it with technology.

The true reason for it is because they are afraid of Pokemon, which, unlike the technology, can (and, according to theirs most pessimistic views, will) betray humans, not counting Legendaries and Mythicals, to most of whom humans are nothing more than a toys/pests/mere nuisances. For corporates, any Pokemon (aside from the Magikarp with Everstone and such) is essentially a bomb, which can easily go off at any moment. They also remember history of Pokelantis, when Ho-oh’ve destroyed entire kingdom and murdered thousands of innocent people just because king was an asshole. That’s why they are so happy about fusion nukes - it’s currently their’s best option to be able to strike back at the high-grade Legendaries and, possibly, kill them (bioweapons, which will be able to seriously injure or/and kill high-grade Pokemon (including biological-body Legendaries and Mythicals) without harming humans, are still in the very early stages of development). So far, they’ve never used any fission or fusion weaponry, but they’re always ready to do it, if necessary.

Unlike in the most of the megacorp portrayals, these two corps value humanity’s well-being and survival above everything else, so they have no problems with hiring Pokemon hunters (Hunter J’ve got even recruited into the General Industries agents, not without some help of a blackmail), giving some data to the Teams, so they’ll do dirty job for corps (like secretly providing Cipher with information of the proto-Shadow Pokemon so they’ll, basically, research it for corps (although no one from Cipher, excluding several corporate agents, knows it), while TungusTech and GI are keeping Orre region in the sights of a WMDs in the event of Shadow project going a little too well) and such, if this means gathering more data about the Pokemon weaknesses and, therefore, more abilities for humanity to safely live along with them and to strike back in the event of something going really bad.

The key element in the corporate philosophy, when it comes to Pokemon (especially high-grade Legendary ones), is paranoia. They’ll never really trust anyone they won’t be able to kill and who’ll be able to cause a major harm to humanity (of course, corps value live of theirs employees somewhat more than lives of the non-employees, but any human live for them is, in general, more worthy than those of Pokemon), although they may play along to ensure best outcome for humans, but they’ll always search for the ways to kill those which they can’t kill yet (and be ready to use it as an argument or even backstab with it as soon as it’s available/necessary). However, that also means, that they can more-or-less easily establish normal two-sided dialog with Latis, Shaymins and another non-insanely-powerful Legendaries/Mythicals, because they are not, well, doomsday-powerful, can be (relatively) easily killed and, therefore, aren’t a real threat to humanity.

So far, one of the corporates most dangerous weapons are so-called “retribution vehicles”. They look like some non-armed satellites (most of them are disguised as a telecommunication or surveillance satellites), they work like these satellites, but inside, they house a fusion warhead (ranging from 10Kt to a 6 Mt of TNT equivalent, depending on series). To add to this, all of the corporate satellites have rocket engines to de-orbit if necessary: officially, it is done to be able to prevent Kesslers Syndrome without usage of additional devices (and it is 100% true for all of theirs non-armed and even some armed satellites), but in reality, this was done so the retribution vehicles would be no different externally from the normal satellites and theirs emergency de-orbiting won’t cause any additional suspicions until it’s too late and the warhead goes off, annihilating everything in the decent radius.

For now, the retribution vehicles are part of the “Final Solution” program and are to be used in the event if nuclear WMD is required, but nothing else can be used. They’re not something to use first, they’re only to be used if things are going really bad. No retribution vehicle so far was deorbited, except for the test unit with a dummy warhead, which’ve landed precisely in the designated test area (which was located in the middle of ocean, to prevent suspicions) and have proven that the retribution vehicles are viable solution to the nuclear weapons deployment problem.

I’ve based the retribution vehicles on the real Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, except the retribution vehicles are launched at the normal satellites orbits and stay on them, working as a telcom/surveillance satellites for as long as necessary.

@mgrgfan let’s talk ships. So, we both seem to be in agreement that the Hikoukyuu is for the most part fully automated. Though how it would land…you do propose an interesting idea, but that would suggest either that all landing pads are specifically built for that one ship or that there are other nearly identical ship out there.

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

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