Team Snagem HQ (Mt. Silver)

[Atlantis_Darts]

SubonicXP

"Next call, please." He told GRAY.

The call from Devon clicks off and there's a brief moment of silence as the AI juggles the two lines, before the call clicks through. "Well, well." Ein comments, probably wearing the same self-satisfied sneer he usually did when talking to the Snagems, as his murderously silky voice came through every Snagem's device along with the speakers of HQ. "I never would have thought in all of my years, that Snagems were a mountainous people. What a fascinating principle of evolution I had yet to observe adaptations for. Pawn moves forward, rook takes pawn, bishop takes rook. Check. It rather appears as though your opening was rather antiquated for the times."  

[Darksol88]

And just like that, not only did every ounce of hope leave Aden, Cera and Amaranth, but every ounce of anger flooded back into the more chimera-like of the three too. He didn't say a word, but thankfully, he didn't have to.

"Sub, I think we need to abandon this HQ, now and forever," Cera spoke up, her telepathy proving to be useful as it wasn't something Ein could hear. "If we stay here, Ein will just crush us all whenever he feels like it, and no amount of invigorating speeches are going to save us if he sics that machine guy on us again. Even if he doesn't, yanno, we're all compromised thanks to whoever left that data Miror B. got a hold of!" There was a lot of emphasis on her last part, as if she were ready to accuse the other members that weren't named Reno or Sub. And judging by the look on her face, she'd be ready to stop being so nice too.

"Yeah, and that was because Reno was left to interrogate him! Which is my and Blizz's fault..." Aden commented, already wanting to kick himself.  

[Requiem of Whyspers]

"We're not pieces in your twisted little game, Ein." Lykas growled, though he knew that, with Ein contacting them here as he was, that the psychopath had essentially won already. But the thing about battles? They could be fought over and over as long as the soldiers still stood and still had the will to keep fighting.

"We're done." Odd said quietly. He remembered this guy. They'd barely managed to finish him off during their last encounter but it would seem that he was beyond Death's grasp. But...Wait. If Death was the problem, maybe he could help with that?

Kaya and Trish were not so easily encouraged. They were already feeling extremely low. Less than Magikarp levels of worthless at the moment. Sub's speech had invigorated them slightly but when Ein's voice came over their SNAGs, they lost all hope once more. How could they fight someone who was able, not only to predict their every move but who had discovered their base as well as hacked their encrypted files and their protected radio frequency? The girl and hybrid weren't in the best places right now.  

[Atlantis_Darts]

SubonicXP

"Ein, so nice to hear your voice again. How was hell? Did you see Evice? I hope you got in all that backlogged boot licking." Sub smarted off immediately after Ein chimed in. After that he shut up and listened to what the mad man had to say and part of him wished he didn't even accept the call in the first place. "Yes, it's lovely here. Perhaps we should have tea one day. How do you like your's? With arsenic or cyanide?" He smirked, he was trying to crack jokes but deep down his feathers were truly ruffled.

"Any who, I take it it's my move, hm? What to do...oh well something will come to me. So, anything else to say old chum or might I bid you adieu?" He asked the scientist, he really wanted this conversation over.

"So fussy, Sub, come now our chat was just beginning to pick up. If hell existed, I'm sure Evice would have been put there, but seeing how I have never seen the other side, you'll have to ask him yourself once I'm done with you. Now I am sure you are all worrying your little hearts out that I know the location of your secret precious headquarters, and to those of you quaking in fear, I say congratulations on possessing a survival instinct. But you have nothing to worry about." The scientist pauses, smiling a smug little grin to himself no doubt. "What fun would there be in attacking you where you would be the weakest, and caught by surprise? Or to expose you to the world so that the military can take care of you? Too easy of a win in this little game, there is no satisfaction, no... schadenfreude if you will. I already told you, this team of mine does not exist solely to defeat you. They exist to obsolete you." Ein's voice turns to venom, a cold ice that was easy to hear. "And destroying your headquarters may come in time, once the building crews sweep away an empty building forgotten alone in the center of a lonely mountain, wondering what kind of backwards people would have lived here as they level the thing to make room for a new highway, but your broken mortal shells will have fallen far from these grounds for the world to see already, I promise you that." The line clicks dead after he gets out that final word, an ominous dial tone cutting through before the call cancels through their devices.  

[Darksol88]

"No, Blizz," Aden commented, and if anything, his anger grew. "I will not drop it. I don't care how hypocritical she's being, sis is right. We're completely compromised, even if none of you want to admit it, and most of us stepping foot into Hoenn will get us killed just as fast if we went back to Kalos! And it's all our fault except for Sub's! The only thing missing is someone from Cipher actively rubbing our noses in it apart from Ein's smug tone that needs to be punched into next week."

"Yeah, you shut up. Did you even listen to one word from him? He knows where we are! Being here at all is just as dangerous as being outside, and he knows it! He's already won, and just one of his men can literally kill every last one of us in a matter of seconds, so what else do we have for an option!?" It was obvious at this point that both of them had made up their minds.  

[Darksol88]

"Uh..."

"What?"

Neither of the two had much time to react when Blizzard grabbed them like he did, and while the idea of breaking free come to mind, they were both well aware of what he was capable of. Not wanting to become the HQ's newest ice sculptures quite yet, they found theirselves being dragged outside.  

[Darksol88]

"No, but last time I checked, there's a difference between failing and managing to prove someone wrong and failing even when you're trying to prove that someone wrong. You saw what just one member of his can do alone. One can kill several in a time barely measurable in seconds, and the other just reduced us all to a bunch of chumps. Twice," Aden commented, quickly rising to his feet. "Any little bit of progress we've managed to do has brought little more than making things worse, making us look worse. Even with sis trying to help H.A.Z.A.R.D., what was their reaction? Appreciate the help, and then backstab us by raising all of the bounties and wanting us dead even more. Norman might be on our side, but only for the same reasons Devon is at all."

Pausing for a moment, he sighed. "And yeah, you did teach me better. That there's a way through things if they seem insurmountable. But tell me, what about if you can't even find that way and any attempts to find it just makes everything worse? Recent slipups aside, we did all we could at Slateport and at the Quarantine Zone, and except to a corporation and maybe one person, we haven't proven any reason why he's wrong."


"Yanno," Cera finally remarked, staying on the ground, "when I first started getting so mad, it was because the last thing any of us should've done was leave and if any of us did, it'd cripple us even more than we already were. But that was before we got discovered and had to worry about when, not if, we get attacked in one of the other areas it'll hurt most. And even if none of us did want him to have his way, what's stopping him? We don't have a chance against much more than maybe Miror B., and even he was mopping the floor with us until Sub showed up..."