Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ulla didn't even flinch when the 'root' pierced her chest and the two spirits of her parents formed in front of her. She looked at Keiko who had flinched at the sudden stab. Ulla merely nodded to confirm she was alright. "This is a normal thing here." The child said in a joking manner to ease the motherly side of Keiko. She then turned her attention back to her Master who was analyzing the spirit.

"But Master you know my tale....she made me her channeling partner. I was born a still born and she used her channeling to revive me. Something no channeler has ever accomplished. If it wasn't for Xerneas-." Before she could finish her explanation. That was a bit odd...why did Succellus recollection differ from hers? She stayed quiet as the adventured deeper into the realm to the Tree of Life. It's been awhile since she's last saw it up close and personal. Once she saw her master bow, she quickly sat beside him. She placed her staff beside her and bowed her head the same way.

As Succellus asked his question, Ulla was about to speak up but then he was suddenly caught up by the sudden wind. "Master?!" She shouted as she stood up. She protected her eyes from the wind as it suddenly disappeared as fast as it suddenly came. Before she could even ask if he was okay, she saw the concern in his eyes.

"That doesn't make any sense...Are you saying....my parents roots slipped out of the cycle? So they no longer follow the cycle?" She asked as he quickly walked over to the Tree of Life. She already knew far too well what he was about to do. She merely did a slight bow as she picked up her staff. "Please send my regards to Lord Xerneas." The Fairy Child said ash she watched Succellus commune with the tree. She merely sighed, only having more questions than actual answers. She turned to Keiko as she already knew the deal. "Don't worry. We won't need to make the long trip back." Ulla said as she made a portal again infront of them. She let Keiko step through it first and soon followed behind her.

Ulla and Keiko would find themselves back at HQ in their temporary living arrangement. The young girl shuffled her hair. "So much for having my master as a character witness...I'll report this to Sub immediately Mama..." She said as she quickly ran off to find Sub. As she was looking for him, her mind started racing again. So, that was her real mom and dad back at the tower. If that's the case...why didn't they ever come back home? Why did they abandon their children? Make them hold a funeral? Once she finally found Sub, she merely starred at him with a blank, defeated stare. "You want to guess what he said...?"

"Guess when you don't need to worry about who sees your innermost thoughts, the masks get hung up," Sol remarked as Sub read off the excerpt. He wouldn't get to say much else, let alone Cera or Amaranth before the TV had turned itself on thanks to GRAY and SWIPE's broadcast was plain for all to see. In an instant, whatever Sub had found felt almost worthless by comparison, hearts sinking as it continued. The apparent jury did little to salve the last words of the excerpt, ringing much louder than they ever would've when the team dealt with Ein. Each of the three were totally silent long after the broadcast ended, in their own mixtures of anxious feelings, despondency, and questioning if they'd even really have lives to speak of provided they did somehow prove their innocence.

"...that's it?" Amaranth eventually asked, causing Flaaffy to jump at the sudden remark. Looking back to her for a second, she'd recall the sheep, not wanting her to see what was bubbling and boiling at the surface. She glared at the stairs where Sub departed to, wishing she could just march up there and give him a piece of her mind then and there, even after his attempt at giving tasks for the rest to handle. Her tone kept growing as she continued, practically yelling by the end. "We all went through the hell of that place, had old wounds open up, and more got hurt besides while everything's going wrong for us at every angle. All for Ein's private vent account!? That SWIPE won't care about!?"

"It would give some deniability to the idea that we worked with him. He certainly didn't see a need to mince words..." Cera spoke up. "Ammy, I get it, I'm still hurting from yesterday too, but we need to-"

"If you're about to say again about how we should remain calm, Cera, shove it and shut up! Maybe you're fine with Sub digging all of us into a deeper hole by the minute, but I'm not!" Amaranth kept yelling, gesturing wildly around the room. "We all had lives before all this and some of us have been finding new ones, and they're all ruined now! Doesn't matter if we're proven innocent, the world's never going to look at us the same! Seriously, ask yourself, was anyone being sent to find S-22 worth this!? Or you being sent off to Almia, because I'm sure Spenser will be happy to use that against us too!"

Cera's mouth would be left gaping throughout the diatribe, the Mew shaking before finally glaring back. "I've been saying we should stay calm because this infighting isn't getting us anywhere! And we had a good reason for keeping an eye on Almia given what might've happened if we didn't!"

"Enough, please," Sol finally spoke up, a deep sigh leaving him. "I know emotions are running high, they are for all of us. What Sub found casts doubt on what SWIPE's presenting, regardless of how... inherently useful it'll be in doing that. But we'd be fools to let that be all we have, especially if we're being afforded a modicum of freedom. We have time, take some it to process things because we sure haven't had a good chance to do that as it is. And then do something, anything. We're going to need it." He'd turn around afterward, starting to head outside.

"Wait, where're you going?"

"You didn't hear him earlier? He said about you looking for something more presentable for the rest of us while I see if I can't find Wes. Doubt it's going to be the easiest task, so don't keep the lights on, yeah? Amaranth, I- ah."

By the time he thought to say anything more, Amaranth had already made her way towards another floor. "I was going to remark that maybe her going to Sinnoh wouldn't hurt, but I missed what Sub said in the first place."

"I'll... give Ammy some time before trying to talk to her. No guarantees."

"Right. I'll leave you to it. Here's hoping I don't have to smack too much sense into him."

One by one the members of Team Snagem would appear in their temporary HQ at Trainer Hill, arriving through various means of teleportation ranging from Claydol to their own personal teleporting Pokemon. Sub would be the last to appear, having arrived via Gardy, the Gardevoir taking the situation seriously the moment she laid eyes on Dialga, knowing good and well that she had to get her trainer far away from there. After Sub appeared he'd look around in silence, taking count of every member here and once he confirmed they all made it out, children included, he let out a deep sigh of relief and let himself fall to the ground bottom first. Immediately Gardy spun around to attend to her trainer, worry in her eyes.

"No, no...it's okay, Gardy. I'm fine, just tired." He reassured his Gardevoir, waving her off. He just wanted to sit here for awhile. Gardy would look at him with concern for a second before giving him a confirming nod, choosing to sit on the floor next to him, legs crossed. "So...that was...something." He said to no one in particular, trying to come to terms with everything that just happened. "Everyone okay? No limbs missing that weren't already missing?" He said, chuckling a bit. He had to make light in some way, otherwise he might go crazy. "I got to say, going into the trial I wasn't confident we'd get away with our freedom. At the same time I never thought in my wildest dreams that we'd get away because a Pokemon God crashed the party. And now that I have a chance to think I can't for the life of me figure out what Cyrus was going on about. We, let alone myself, have never even so much as scuffed the paint on his car...if he has one, I don't know."

Deo was back, in hostile territory. He stealthily walked toward the arcade, a quiet spot. Hoping nobody would see him, catch him, and worse. Should he be caught, it would be a shouting match. He was more than mentally shocked, he was concerned, demoralized, and burnt. To him, he was alone, in a room, with blood hungry individuals out for his blood. To him, he was a traitor. Not just to the Law, but to SNAGEM as well. He would leave nothing as he went up to the arcade to think on how to escape or at least make amends.

Gradually, as the Snagems came in, one such gathering was Freth, Doc Owl, and his assistant Machamp, Orderly, teleported in by Freth’s Alakazam. Orderly looked on edge, probably the most anyone has ever seen a Machamp. Once probably couldn’t blame him, however, he was within destruction range of one of the most powerful Pokémon known in legend. Everything started to come forth for the poor Machamp; being in high-stress was nothing new. One medical emergency after the next, along side Doc Owl. This was…a whole other kind of incomprehensible stress that the Machamp wasn’t quite ready for. “Its okay, Orderly…just have a seat, gather yourself. Do what you need to in this…” Doc Owl looked around the headquarters; a run down lobby of some sort that he didn’t recognize, the less than stellar conditions even though everyone had been trying to do what they could to make the most of it in the past weeks. “…place. Where…are we exactly anyways?” Doc Owl asked Freth.

“Welcome to Trainer Hill in the Hoenn Region. It was something Sub had tucked away in his back pocket for a while. Nothing done with it though in this entire time. Didn’t imagine us using it to hide off from SWIPE or anyone else for that matter. Excuse the mess; we haven’t had much opportunity to do much to it other than maybe make it a hair more livable as we try to figure out what insanity had happened to us over the past weeks.” Freth explained. “Until we can figure it all out, I am doubting we’re making it back to Mt. Silver anytime soon.”

“Quite…though I have to admit that it’s not much to look at anymore either. After you lot effectively abandoned the headquarters to go off on this crusade to clear our names, SWIPE slowly started to make their own use out of the place. Figured that with all the time and resources Sub had placed on it building and maintaining it, might as well not allowed it to go to waste. A satellite headquarters for them some rumor had been made between them, spoken confidently in fact as if that I don’t have the means to listen between their barking orders and taking care of the children there.” Doc Owl explained.

“Someone’s feeling confident.” Freth said. She would look around, then notice something. “Did Blizzard make it back?”

Almost on cue, Telia would arrive with Sol, still shouldering me as I grimaced in pain from the attack that I took earlier. “Well, at least this place is still intact…the hell was that back there!?” I said to no one in particular in the room.

“Are you talking about Cyrus, the Dialga, or in general?” Freth asked, almost deadpan.

“Yes!” I snapped back, almost coughing out as I did so. I didn’t even know where to start with the questions. The evidence that Sub had was all of a sudden altered, the conflicting evidence that Cruxias, and by extension SWIPE having, Cyrus’s sudden vendetta to Sub, the fact that a powerful legendary was now involved. Then something else. My head swiveled around to get a good look at the area as I remained propped on Sol. “Never mind the gigantic Donphan in our midst…”

“Uh…what?” Freth asked, confused.

“Where the hell is Deo!?”

“Why?” Freth asked.

“He threw us under the bus at the start with SWIPE!” I said. “All the way back during those blasted interrogations!” Doc Owl ended up having to put out a deep breath, having been there for that part of the court trial. Though at this point, he was perhaps more agitated that in spite of the shape I was in I was looking for someone to take frustrations out on and Deo was the perfect excuse. Freth, perhaps not as angry as I was at the sudden revelation, couldn’t help but help but to rub her eyes in a bit of frustration, suddenly figuring we were perhaps compromised more than what we had. Though it did raise a few questions to her. While it may have been true that Deo might have done so, the fact was that we still have a place here intact and that SWIPE hadn’t made a move in on anyone here. Though…after Cyrus’s stunt, who knows now.

“As if things weren’t hard enough around here…” Freth said. “…though Blizzard, its not like he’s the first one that ever done anything like that to us.”

“And that makes it better!?” I then asked.

“Wait, really?” Eris chimed in. “Oh wait…I remember seeing this in memory. Aile?”

“Even Cera, believe it or not.” Freth said.

“I…didn’t get that far. Holy crap, didn’t think she had it in her.”

“She really didn’t. You’ll see what I mean eventually.”

Keiko and I were sitting against a wall with our children in our arms - Serena in hers and Yuna in mine. Chaos and Absinthe followed me behind the teleporter panel back in the Viridian Gym as they figured nobody else was escaping, and they were here, too. The Deathrage Patriarch had decided to stick with Snagem for the time being, as going back to Goldenrod was pretty obviously not a wise decision, even though he had gone with SWIPE to that courtroom of his own volition. Abby, much like Keiko, was just glad to be done with that whole debacle, though Keiko was mostly just happy to have Yuna and Serena back. I had to imagine Lykas and Odd felt similarly about Libelle. I was honestly surprised that Chaos wasn't trying to connect with his granddaughter, but I got the sense that he was waiting for something. Probably a debriefing on what happened, though that might be too reasonable to expect of Chaos, although Abby has been pointing out that the intensity of his countenance has calmed somewhat over the years.

"Daddy, where are we?" Yuna spoke up, knocking me off of that train of thought. She also felt like she wanted to wait for something, but she couldn't be expected to have much impulse control at her age. "This is where we've been living since SWIPE showed up. It's not much, but it's safe.," I explained. Trainer Hill was indeed a far cry from Snagem HQ, but keeping the girls safe was the most important thing Keiko and I could do. Keeping them in arm's reach was a pretty close second, but with how things have been going, I was starting to wonder if finding someone uninvolved with all this wasn't a better course of action. But there was a problem with that, in that travelling was pretty much an impossibility thanks to SWIPE. It was annoying, though - we KNEW who was responsible for all the nonsense going on. Was he alone in his actions, or were there others with that ability? Would SWIPE see reason or continue to pursue us? All we could do was wait and try to keep the girls as comfortable as possible while they were here with us. My gut was telling me SWIPE wasn't done giving us problems, but they proved in that courtroom that they were only doing their jobs, and that they weren't the real enemy.

I shook my head at myself. Worrying about it now was pointless. We'd just have to see how things went form here and hope there was a light at the end of this forsaken tunnel.

Crystal had recalled Demon Wing as soon as it was clear everything was done, once the Dialga had shown that it was now ending things. When she had made her way to Claydol and arrived back in HQ, she would find the cot she claimed to hold her personal effects, immediately grabbing the notebook. Next step would be a quiet spot to write down everything she just witnessed, starting from Cruxias’ sabotage of the evidence. She was on the verge of an information overload, and now that they were safe for the moment, she could actually attempt to process everything.

When her writing got to the extradimensional trip, she paused, trying to make sense of the end. She didn’t see him last time. Granted, she was also somewhat panicked back in the tower, and not focusing on that, but she knew she hadn’t seen Darts until they left. This time, she felt that shatter and scream, in her very core. What did they do? What did the pair of them cause? Was it because of their target, or that they had decided on the same exit point? And just how far would those effects be felt? It honestly scared her, and just made her think a lot. About the nature of the attack on the Snagems, and if the means of her help justified the ends. Just how in over her head did she become? Because now, it felt like she was falling into the deepest ocean she had ever accidentally dropped into, real or theoretical.