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Aile looked over at Darts, raising an eyebrow. The coin that had come out was an interesting looking one… and then the Gimmighoul came out. She never actually saw it in Kitakami, as she arrived after all of the festivities had gotten fully underway, so this guy was new to her. It certainly seemed a bit smaller to her than Poggle, though, its focus was in question to the woman. Once the coin rolled onto the warp panel, Aile raised her eyebrows, with the little greedy ghost Pokémon activating the warp panel. Once it returned, she sighed, then listened as Darts explained what he saw. “A closet… Hm. Now- Hey!” Her gaze would settle on the pint sized girl, leering as she regained her balance. "Lefty? Really? I'll show you my left..." Leslie would certainly feel the woman's left hand, a hard, solid smack from the animated prosthetic to the back of the Tink hybrid's head, before shaking her own. She looked around at everyone else and sighed, finally putting her thin socks and shoes back on. “Fine. Kaas, return for now. I’ve got a feeling you’ll be back out later.” Upon recalling the large bear, Aile would take a breath and step onto the pad herself. She’d rather have Kayvaan by her side as well, but it would probably take too much time to get him back at the moment. So, her partner this time would have to be Poggle. Still, not the worst of partners. She could just only have her big beaters.

I facepalmed as Deo left the stand. I knew from my time in Paldea that the man was emotionally unstable, but lying to the court - even unintentionally - did NOT make this any easier for the rest of us. Then there was that business with the radio. Made me wonder if Absinthe was right to call him a pig. I couldn't help but glance at Chaos as I thought that, but the man was stone-faced. He wasn't even taking any enjoyment from watching Deo squirm. Either Absinthe was right and he'd gotten soft over the years, or something else was going on. It didn't help that I couldn't get a bead on this emotional state. Between Rala being in her ball, said ball not being in my personal space, and the absolutely stifling amount of teleport scramblers static-ing up the place, the only thing I COULD sense psychically was Rala. At least I knew exactly where she was, now.

Sub and Reno made it abundantly clear that the prosecution was at fault for setting Deo off, so I chose not to contemplate the matter further. Then Monique was called up. What was Cruxias's plan, here? Did Blizz's honestly stunning display leave him so far on the back foot that he had to attack the newest members of the team? And for what, to feel better about himself? ...eh, probably not that last one,. He seemed to take pity on Deo after the hybrid's display. As I tried to figure out what the prosecutor thought he was doing, I glanced over at Keiko and noticed that Yuna was looking at her. Keiko had curled up into a ball on her seat, and her head was laid on her knees, but give the angle, she was looking back at Yuna. Yuna had a tired smile on her face, and I got the feeling those two were communicating non-verbally somehow. Mabye it was instinct - Keiko was better at listening to that than I was, either due to her being a hybrid or due to me focusing on Psychic Channeling. Maybe a bit of both. As I watched them, I heard Serena's voice. How she slept through Libelle's crying was anybody's guess, but she was waking up now. She didn't seem very happy, either - and that estimation didn't come from emotion sensing. Serena was a far quieter child compared to Yuna. If she needed something, you had about two seconds to hear her. After that, she'd clam up. After Yuna, that took some serious getting used to, and that was the ONLY reason I had any inkling of what she was feeling. She wasn't acting normally, though - she was fidgeting a lot, she was making little sounds of discomfort with her voice, and her ears were curling and uncurling back and forth like crazy. She was even trying to stretch out her arms to cover them with her hands, but her arms weren't long enough for that. It was clear as day to me that she didn't enjoy listening to Libelle. To be honest, I couldn't blame her. I doubt anybody in the room liked hearing that.

I turned my gaze away from my children, but before I could put my focus back on the case, I overheard something Monique said. Cipher collars. My gaze turned back to Yuna, and the collar around her neck, and I immediately felt an anger that overwhelmed my esper ability. I had trouble containing it - Ein's work was around my little girl's neck, and I felt an urge to kill I hadn't felt since I came face to face iwth Lovrina the day Keiko was hybridized. My head was spinning -did SWIPE loot that tech from Realgam Tower or did they get it from the source? Maybe that was the explanation to all this. SWIPE were blaming us for working with Cipher to hide their own involvement with them. Maybe... no. I forced myself to calm down. It took some time, but eventually I was able to swallow that anger and replace it with the numbness I'd been using to conceal my emotions this whole time. I had to focus on the case, now more than ever. I already learned one crucial detail about what was going on, and if Cruxias was taking Reno's objection over relevance seriously, even more important information would come out soon.

~*~

Absinthe stayed close to the group, but she wasn't paying attention to them or what they were talking about. The only thing she could think about right now was the fact that her father was in that courtroom. She was regretting coming out here at all, now. If she had just gone to the stupid case, she could have gotten some answers out of the old man, figured out what happened. Now, she was stuck out here doing whatever the rest of the people here were doing. "Dammit, focus," she growled under her breath. She couldn't do anything for Chaos out here. She had no idea what the plan out here even was, and moping bout what-ifs wasn't going to fix anything. She had to pay closer attention.

Sub could do little but sit there in stunned silence as he watched Cruxias' little production, and that is what it was, a production, a complete work of fiction. He didn't know how he did it, if he hired look a likes or specially trained Ditto or something to act all this out, but it didn't really matter as this was all a deceitful creation. If he wasn't sure before that this entire court case was a hit job he was now, and Cruxias was the maestro of this orchestra or lies. Did prosecutor Cruxias think to use all this as a way to elevate his own name, the man that brought down the fallen heroes, or never-were heroes, of Team Snagem? Or was there more reasons than that? He had to wonder, Cruxias appeared to take joy in his attacks on the team which consistently crossed into almost personal territory with a notable fixation on Sub himself. But this? This was beyond anything before, this was a vicious attack right at the heart of Team Snagem and Sub himself, one that he could not stand for.

"Objection your honor!" Sub shouted as he jumped to his feet, holding himself up by pressing his hands against the table. He actually needed to steady himself for he was so angry, blood pressure so high, that he was liable to pop a blood vessel if he attempted to stand up straight. "The evidence prosecutor Cruxias has submitted is completely fabricated!" He said, pointing an accusing finger at the prosecutor. He couldn't help it, emotions were high, especially when outright slander was being presented as indisputable fact. "I can prove it too, your honor, if you would allow me." With that Sub reached into his vest and conjured up a USB stick of his own and held it up.



"I have with me here the personal files of Ein, files he never intended for anyone else to see which include not only all data he had on Team Snagem, which the court will find Monique to be absent from, but also his personal diary which goes into excruciating detail on Ein's hatred for myself and the team at large. Everything that will directly contradict what prosecutor Cruxias is attempting to portray with his fabricated evidence." He said, shooting the man a glare.

There wouldn't be a reaction from one chair of the defense team, Reno simply watching the footage and other evidence that the prosecution was presenting and taking in as much detail as he could. There was undeniably footage of what they wished to portray and a project that had a concept close enough to work for linking it to Ein. What could be used to poke holes in that portrayal to force either more evidence or some attempt to respond? Sub was already leading off with an easy one, their entire collection of Ein's personal diary declaring them all a pack of window-licking Mankeys who could barely knock rocks together, let alone work alongside him. So he could.....bring up exactly what it was Monique had beat him to the punch on mentioning. He had another reason for wanting to bring up the Aku Twins, which was Mister Mushroom and his sudden intrusion to try and force their next destination. After all, why bait the hook like that unless you had helped set the stage for making that outcome likely?

.....and how else could he attempt to rig the results in such a manner?

Looking towards his Wynaut, still sitting on the table and watching the proceedings, Reno decided that now was a time to chance a small active probe. Letting his telepathy pick out the minds and bodies around, he would immediately identify a few blank areas where Sub, Monique, and the collection of collared hostages were. Those were all expected and absolutely unsurprising. He just needed to see if he could find a pair of blank spots that he couldn't as easily explain away. And if he did and he couldn't get a better explanation with a better visual examination, he would need to plan from there. After all, there was no guarantee on this panning out but they needed to take big swings after that little video display.

Also, why had the Ein video been muted? Couldn't figure out how to replicate the voice?

Time is a fickle thing. Multiple things can occur within its bound simultaneously, giving it a multifaceted-ness that doesn’t exist in any other medium.



Reno’s scan of the courtroom would find an unseen individual. But it wasn’t a pair of blank spots. It was one singular blank spot. In the near-empty prosecution side, behind the prisoners SWIPE had brought in from the HQ raid, there was a singular individual mind. As he touched and engaged with it, Reno would realize this person was just barely holding themselves in check. They salivated, hungered, desired more than anything else to rip this courtroom asunder and devour everyone inside of it, starting with the children sitting right in front of it.

But, mentally, it had a leash on itself too. Its canine-esque desire to tear the throats of the weak was being held in check by someone else inside the building. The longer the psychic exchange went, the more Reno would realize that there was a familiar otherworldly fuzziness to the mental energies from this person. For all the panting and slobbering it was doing unconsciously, this individual was from another world in the same way Dull originally had been. For a brief moment, the probe goes inward and the Co-Leader would get a visual flash of a crazed Houndoom hybrid, tongue lolling out and one singular word: Dark.



Cruxias shrugs at Monique’s words, his prosecutor’s badge with three spheres, a triangle, and parenthetical symbols around it jangling as he does so. “Les preuves sont les preuves.” He says simply, addressing her. “The video is very clear, that is what happened in some way shape or form.” The prosecutor pauses as Sub steps up, that odd glint in his eye appearing again as he stands face-to-face with Snagem’s Leader. “Oh by all means,” He allows, pointing towards Sub and the drive with his cane. “Present for the court.”



There is one person and one person alone who sees what happens moments before Sub can move up and insert the flash drive into the projector. Crystal’s ears might even perk up a little bit at the rush of extraspacial energy she would notice in the instant before that device is plugged in. A subtle pinkish-purple hue spreads from the top of the prosecutor’s cane and onto the electronics in Sub’s hands. This is something the Solgaleo hybrid has tasted before, in the birthing of new worlds. Reality itself was reshaping, molding in upon itself and creating a new truth right before her very eyes. Time, the fickle thing it is however, does not give her enough of it to warn anybody before the evidence is up on the screen.

The bombshell evidence, thought to clear their names and present Ein’s hatred to the world is, predictably, now nothing anywhere near that. The drive is filled to the brim with files and videos and pictures that painted a scene of Cipher and Snagem working together from the very beginning, Monique featuring chiefly among the files at the intermediary between the two running clandestine and communicational operations that were considered ‘too sensitive’ for electronic or written means. There is no room for falsification or Aku twin trickery, the metadata could not be more explicit that this was Monique, Sub, and Ein, working together to try and bring about a new world order with their two teams on top of it. It was almost as if by not being in this world it made it much easier, if someone had the power to, fabricate a past or manipulate that individual’s supposed actions.

“Was this the great evidence that was supposed to show your innocence?” Cruxias asks, not crowing his victory, but with seemingly genuine concern in his eyes as he addresses the court. “This has done nothing but proven what I have been saying all along – that Team Snagem, their individual members, may have thought they were on a path to try and save the world but because of the actions of that man,” He indicates Sub here, pointing his cane again. “He misled and pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes, un loup déguisé en agneau. And now he’s led the rest of the flock here to take the fall right alongside him. Is that fair? I ask you, the jury?” Cruxias implores them with a twist of his hand. “Is that fair, I ask you, the rest of you?” He looks to the gallery – but not just at the other random people assembled, even Team Snagem he seems to be beseeching them to rise up and cast aside their loyalties and their ties to Sub in the moment. “You can see now, the measure of what kind of man he is-”

Cruxias is cut off, but not by a noise that can be heard. Rather, it’s felt. The passage of time that heralds the entropic end of all things as energy burns out of their system. Each person in the courtroom could paradoxically feel the sound well before anything happened. It was a very primal ripple that spread, a herald of things to come that temporally shook the floorboards of Viridian City gym. As the wave passed through everyone, a couple of things would change for a fleeting infinitesimal instant.

Cruxias’ suit and cane would be no more, replaced in that instant by what appeared to be a crenelated-looking suit of white armor, covered in undulating Unown symbols, with a familiar looking triangular symbol and Arceus-parentheticals carven in gold in the chest. Rather than his cane a massive white carven staff, made up of a flowing stream of Dragon-Pokemon was clutched in his hand. A glowing pink orb sat cradled in the jaws of the topmost, pulsing with that same light Crystal had managed to see earlier.

The individual Reno was probing in that same moment would all of a sudden come to light for the briefest of instants. A massive Houndoom hybrid seated in one of the empty rows of the gallery, his tongue lolling out. Sol would surely recognize his darker half from worse days, Dark. Neither he nor Cruxias seem too concerned by what’s about to happen in this moment, though maybe they just didn’t have time to react appropriately. This was but an instant of an instant after all.

Finally, the screen showing the evidence would flicker and jitter and for a briefest of instants it would show the evidence all of Snagem had seen and reviewed together in the leadup to their trial, showing the derision and scorn of Ein, before an explosion goes off in the middle of the courtroom and all three oddities go back to their previous version of a few seconds prior.

Another sound unlike anything any of the Snagems, assembled Gym Leaders, watchers, or even viewers at home had probably heard rings through the courtroom and a massive azure-blue pulse of energy cuts through and explodes outward in a ring, mercifully slower than the warning sound beforehand, giving them all an instant to react as it smashes apart the courtroom erected in the middle of the gym, shearing straight through everything in the room at about chest height as the Roar of Time echoes through eternity in the middle of all of them, throwing the proceedings into chaos and immediately putting every single person in the courtroom into the line of fire. The team was going to have to act immediately to try and stop everyone in the room from becoming casualties to this massive attack.

Regardless of how each Snagem reacted in the moments they had following the Roar, the source would be impossible to ignore. A Dialga, its sauropod legs crunching the tiles beneath its feet smashed its way through the too-small Gym door, wisps of smoke floating up from its open jaws as it recharges from the use of its massive roar. A much smaller figure walks next to its front leg, spiky bright blue hair above a grey uniform with a bright yellow ‘G’ emblazoned on the chest. “Snagem!” Cyrus hails them, his face expressionless as always as he looks on the carnage he’s just caused. “You looked like you were in a bit of a tight spot.”

Monique, still trying to get through her own feelings and trying to understand what on earth was going on with this court and this evidence, did not understand. The feelings that something had been tampered with, nagging at her in little ways, finally came home. There was some sort of feeling she could not quantify in that moment, but it had to just be the stress of—

Rooooooooooooar! A guttural vibration unlike any she had ever heard in her life erupted from everywhere, from nowhere, from the middle. She looked around. It seemed like people were flickering into other visages for just a moment. W... Was that a suit of armor!? Shaken, Monique had her head on a swivel.

"Snagem! Protect the jury! Everyone get down!"

Monique raced toward the nearest member of the box, her small frame sprawled over Marnie of Galar as a shield. She saw little of the blue glow, but she felt debris spray on her back and that white outfit of hers—and, hopefully, of Cruxias. She felt Marnie shake. Unmoving until—

"Snagem!" a voice she had not heard in her life called out. Monique rolled over to see that, racing away from a blue glow, the court had been cut in half by something, gashing the temporary walls inside the Viridian City Gym. And the something was obvious: a dragon three times her height, accompanied by a man with a spiky blue hairdo and a gray uniform. She had never seen either of them in her life, but all she could think of was her prayer to Tapu Fini. Was this an emissary for the tapu?

Monique's heart raced, trying to comprehend. Who? What? How? Why? What next?

Everything seemed to stop for a second when I saw the evidence Sub submitted to the court. There was no doubt now - the evidence was being tampered with in real time. Everything that deviated from the norm we knew wasn't a result of any tampering with Ultra Space like I once thought. They were all deliberate alterations designed to throw us off at best, or ruin our reputation at worst. To top it all off, the person responsible for that deliberate tampering of time was in this courtroom - within grasp. But there wasn't any way for me to know who that could be. Not that I had much time to contemplate that, though, as I heard Sub shout for us to protect the jury shortly after. I couldn't do that, though. I'd been waiting for the opportunity to reunite with my children, and I ~/~ sure wasn't going to let them die before then. I wouldn't them die at all if I could help it. I turned my gaze to where Yuna was sitting, but for a brief moment, I saw his true form - or what I HAD to assume was his true form. The guy looked like a fictional character in one of those 'otherworlder' cartoons that were popping up all over the place as of late.

Rala, wherever you are, I need you to protect Yuna, Serena, and Libelle NOW, I thought as I grabbed Keiko and pushed both our bodies underneath our seats. She was so focused on Yuna and Serena that I wasn't certain she'd heard what Sub said, but the second we were on our hands and knees, she was fully conscious of her surroundings - though she didn't have time to ask what was going on before the Roar of Time hit. Yuna, thanks to sitting behind the prosecutor, had enough time to take a Pokeball out of the little backpack she was wearing and open it. Rala came out, and just managed to get a barrier of psychic energy around herself, Yuna, Doc Owl, and the babies in his arms before the Roar of Time hit them.

Keiko had a scare of her own as the Roar of Time raged on above us. Among the many things temporarily changed due to the chaotic ravages of time over our heads, her body actually reverted to a fully human state for two seconds. She looked almost exactly the way she did before Lovrina hybridized her - she was a little taller, a good bit more mature, and her arms were still muscular in a feminine way. We only got a look at her new body before she reverted back to being a Lopunny hybrid, which I took as my cue that the Roar of Time had passed. When I stood up, I noticed Cyrus and the legendary Pokemon he rode in on immediately. There was no doubt about it. Talking time was over, and fighting time was here.

Brian didn't see the pink energy flow from the prosecutor into the device Sub was holding. However, he knew that something was off about the USB that Sub plugged in. Monique hadn't joined Snagem until after he had, so he knew for a fact that what was showing now was wrong. Still, that didn't answer why that 'evidence' had suddenly appeared. It was not even a minute after that everything went to s**t, literally. The sudden pressure in the air was the only thing that alerted him that something was wrong, so terribly wrong. He saw a very brief glimpse of Cruxias' form shift before the entire room exploded. He didn't have time to think; he threw out two Pokeballs and tossed them into the air. "Protect!" he yelled, as Lu materialized. "Firebrand, protect the jury!"

Grabbing the people nearest him, he pushed them and himself to the ground as a glowing green barrier appeared in front of Lu, shielding anyone directly behind her from flying debris. Firebrand, as per his orders, looked where Brian had indicated and gave a nod, moving with a speed that belied his size. He was standing in front of where the jury was sitting, and another Protect barrier went up, hopefully able to shield all of them from harm. When the noise finally settled, Brian poked his head over the destroyed bench he'd been sitting on, Lu instantly at his side, as the two gaped in disbelief at what they were seeing now. What in the Distortion World was a Dialga doing here, of all places? Who the heck was the man that had just called to them?

Glancing around, he could see various Snagems reacting to the chaos. He could see Deo huddled on the floor, covering his head. It was clear, at least to Brian, that Deo was feeling pretty bad about what had been revealed. Making his way over to him, Brian reached down and pulled the big man to his feet. "Now's not the time to give up, Deo," he said. "I won't judge ye for what happened; ye made a choice ye thought was right. However, right now, we have bigger problems, and we all need to work together. Go make sure the kids and Doc Owl are alright. We may need yer size and strength to get them all out safely."

------------------

Rachel had just begun to make her way around the building when she heard the sounds of shouting, and she turned to see SWIPE and police running toward the front door of the Gym. What was going on? Was someone trying to get into the gym? The next thing she saw was a massive blue dragon, one she'd only heard of until now, before chaos erupted. The roar that dragon let out was almost ear-splitting, making her cover her ears until the ringing stopped. "What the hell was that?!" she asked, turning to see how Amaranth was doing. "What do we do now, Amaranth?" While she wanted to help those closest to her, she was worried about their teammates that were still inside the gym. For now, she would follow Amaranth's lead.