Fuchsia City,
Scene of a Crime,
The Manor



Who attacks a manor and decimates it along with everyone inside of it? Isn’t mankind supposed to be a civilized and ancient species, or is it just in their nature to destroy while sitting fancy bathing in their own idea of a ‘civilized’ society? Were humes always so cruel? So stuck in their denial? Xiulan asked herself about mankind on a regular basis. It was unfortunate that to encounter the designs required for her study that she had to travel to places of tragedy. She needed the knowledge, though, to fuel her. Anything else other than sating that curiosity was unacceptable.

The sun had risen over an hour ago with Xiulan watching it ascend and then breathe into the world the light of life, the light of nuclear fission taking place millions of miles away. The tower of black smoke that dissipated its light as it rose, creating a festival of ash and death in the skies, had disappeared by now. The police and the firefighters of Fuchsia City seemed to do their job well, and, if things like this happened on the regular, then Xiulan was certain that she knew why. Patience was a requirement for this job, the professor understood. Chaos always found a way into one’s work, and sometimes the chaos of those thriving in this world at the expense of others was the only way that one’s work could occur.

Sirens were no longer streaming their sound into the atmosphere, and Xiulan was thankful for that. It gave her team the semblance of peace that it needed to set up a sizeable tent of white fabric filled with electronics and equipment where they could analyze what they had discovered and monitor the situation. The tent rested just outside of a neon yellow barricade of some sort of plastic material plastered with ‘crime scene’ monitored and patrolled by a set of officers. For the past half hour or so, Xiulan had watched the happenings there with eyes of her own, not needing to rely on the technology. Others thought that she was just in thought, but that wasn’t the case. Funny that - when one looks like others they seem to assume that one is like them.

Xiulan was just waiting for the go-ahead of a safety examination. Unfortunately for the police officers, they were a bit unnerved, though it was safe. The reason was the feeling of something being off in their reflection - as if they were being watched by themselves, as if their eyes were seeing something that their brain didn’t want them to see. Still, the reflection was them… right? The origin? Well, Xiulan wasn’t ready to share that just yet. Let’s just say that sometimes eyes are everywhere, and that reflection of one’s own that might be seen has secrets that carry an impending sense of doom more so than even monstrous beings in the in-between, and, like those monstrous beings, every so often the truth will be seen. Generally, though, the truth is a dangerous thing...

"Let her in, Officer. It's structurally sound, time to start determining if this is arson. You never know, maybe someone wants to claim the insurance money. And plus, we can watch each other's backs. I'm scared that this might be related to the Master Blaster, though the destruction is far more localized...maybe whoever's operating it was involved?"

After some heated negotiations, a woman with a mix of brown and red locks (was she testing out a new hair color?) finally stepped through, those steel-blue eyes looking right through anyone that dared to meet her gaze. It made glancing down at her generous bust covered in an oil-stained white blouse and baggy, wrinkled khakis a dangerous proposition. She didn't wear her Poké Balls at her waist like most, but kept them among a variety of tools in a metal tackle box she carried in one hand despite the massive weight.

"You. You want to know what happened here. So do I. Let's watch each other's backs and get to the bottom of this."

Fuchsia City,
Scene of a Crime,
The Manor

Murder She Saw

The safety inspection had finished. Generally when one appeared to be as squishy as a human, or when there would be people in general whom possessed the vulnerability of such a species, people were more careful. That, or they took advantage of the innate weaknesses of mankind, and used it to their advantage, whether it be in battle, technology. Sometimes taking advantage simply meant convincing a human population to devastate their own planet for the sake of making money first at the expense of the lower classes, then at the expense of themselves. Xiulan’s depth of study sometimes examined the effects of mankind upon the population of Pokemon. Ghosts weren’t the only Pokemon that could spawn from humans, or at least the actions of humans, and some of these even spawned from pollution or the fact that the Ruulan humans simply make things.

”Every action made by non-Pokemon on this planet impacts the world, yet things like this are still done.” Xiulan thought as she looked upon the manor. Her eyes allowed her to glimpse inside in that manner of which only she knew, and they saw murder. The swirling cyclone of soul-force within had more than likely whipped up new Pokemon by now. Some of those Pokemon might be ghosts inhabiting a sword, though the powerful Honedge by the name of Mursa hovering by Xiulan’s hip senses none of her kind nor did Xiulan. Perhaps there might be Pokemon that arise from the dead allies of deceased trainers, the deceased trainers themselves, or even ghost-type Pokemon that were attracted to the area. Whatever happened, Xiulan knew that she would come out of this with more knowledge than she possessed before regarding the formation of ghost-type Pokemon. Her team’s equipment had gathered information already, after all.

The professor wasn’t certain about what she would encounter. All she knew was that there were ghosts here, quickly formed due to the severity of events, and that those that weren’t captured through Pokeballs would be stored away through a device that some might view as nefarious. The device, no matter how others viewed it, was nonetheless exceptionally useful. It would even capture the residual soul-force in the area, for use in Xiulan’s experiments.

“Professor.” A tanned man younger than Xiulan, but still wearing a labcoat called out. That snapped Xiulan out of her thinking. She turned to face him.

“They’ve assessed the scene and determined it to be safe enough for us to approach. The team is ready.” The man explained. Xiulan hummed in recognition of the man, and then moved towards the scene, her team trailing behind her.

“Officer.” Xiulan nodded to the woman watching the barricade. She flashed her League I.D. badge to the officer to confirm her identity, and then moved under the barricade tape that the officer lifted up.

The Arrival! A Washed-up TRAINER Has Appeared, What Will XIULAN do?

Something was happening even before Xiulan had reached the door of the manor - or what was left, anyway - but it wasn’t exactly what Xiulan had expected. The woman looked back to see a trainer that might be at least around her age, or even older, talking to the officer that had just let her in. Apparently, the trainer had successfully convinced the officer to let her in. Xiulan quirked her head as the trainer approached her.

“Very well, trainer.” Xiulan said.

“I am Professor Xiulan Song of the United Pokemon League.” She gave her greeting, holding out her hand to shake.

“Might I ask who you are?” Xiulan asked.

Genesis,
Near the Mountain Eminence,
Aetherius, Realm of the Spirit

Power flowed through the Song, weaving into existence the things that she wished as she flowed through her life as a sea, a non-celestial entity possessing a view of life’s truer things, and then propelling herself through whatever was deemed to be not of that truth. That which she overcame today was humanity, so that she might project her own soul-force across the vastness separated dimensions, catapulting past the Aethereal Plane so that she might come to a place named Genesis. Everything had its genesis, and while Xiulan’s was a secret to so many, she knew that here something new would be born - something that might one day see greatness achieved. Now, here she stood in a realm where the fields went on endlessly, where spirits thrived, where deities died, where dragons of the soul flew through the skies, and where Eminence towered over it all, watching with a silent face of stone. Still, Xiulan’s humanity was thorough enough that even in the Realm of the Spirit she appeared to be a member of mankind, and perhaps it was because of the power she held over herself even in this realm, or perhaps it was a warning with deeper meaning.

Despite the power that Xiulan possessed over her own presence, there was something about her that was different than one would encounter through the usual human. A presence of emotion and mind perhaps along the same line of potency as the beings that Xiulan had come to visit possessed, or perhaps lesser or greater depending on a few things that Xiulan would discover when she neared them, surrounded her like a veil, emanating from her mind even as she did her best to reduce it. It was due to this that Those capable of noticing such a thing would recognize in her something beyond human.

Near the mountain Eminence, in the Realm of the Spirit, there lied the creatures Jinhai and Myrkul’s Vein. Perhaps because of them divinities would fade, lacking the souls necessary to fuel. Inevitably, this would cause lesser beings to seek out those not of celestial might nor of the demonic type, so that their crops might be watered by fertilizing rains, so that their villages might survive. It was an intriguing downtrickle. It seemed that relying on the beyond human was normal for beings in the Multiverse, and those that didn’t were the abnormal. Xiulan didn’t judge, though. Far from it. Sometimes, to be stable in life, something a little extra was needed. Sometimes something a little extra was needed to have a life at all in this age. That was part of the reason why Xiulan was here. Myrkul’s Vein offered something that she didn’t possess - for the moment, at least, though Xiulan foresaw that acquiring it would be more than difficult, especially due to its nature.

Xiulan was hoping that her visit here would be useful and illuminating. Perhaps the beings that she encountered would realize that those with might of the mind such as they possessed could work together to reach common goals. So, she did exactly what one would expect of someone wishing to come to know another. She approached them with gentleness and curiosity, reaching the land of Genesis, and stopping at the great towers that oversaw the landscape. Xiulan would wait patiently. It wasn’t hard to realize that she would probably be noticed quickly by Myrkul’s Vein, by all that they were composed of.

"If you don't know who I am, then I guess I'm doing something right in my efforts to dodge the media." A weary sigh and a practiced mechanic's shrug. "Titania Brightsmith, former Indigo champ. I want to retire and work on cars, but something keeps pulling me back in. Anyway, this place is a fucking mess. This wasn't just a Pokemon battle that got out of control. This was a siege. Who knows what the people that lived here were trying to protect? And does it tie into all the other shit that's going on all over the world? Honestly, I'll give Ruula this, it's nothing like Terra where all the crap was localized in specific cities."

The world-weary ex-champ sent out a Skarmory to help lift the debris and let people get a look at what might be the reason for such wide-spread devastation, explaining that since it was technically outside city limits, this sort of thing was outside Janine's jurisdiction. "See anything interesting in there, teach? That's weird...there's only one human body, but it's scorched beyond anyone's hopes to ID. Must be someone who stayed back and bought time for the rest to get the fuck out. But that doesn't explain how the whole structure went to shit like this. If the supports were knocked out during the battle, the mansion would have fallen in on itself like a controlled demolition. But there's a whole wave of rubble and dead trees out in one direction...oh no."

There was a distinct expression of barely contained terror on Titania's face as she turned toward Xiulan. "There's only one thing I know of that's capable of this kind of mass destruction...the Master Blaster. It's still out there. It's the reason I un-retired...to try to decommission that piece of shit and whoever's using it."

Fuchsia City,
Scene of a Crime,
The Manor

Xiulan quirked a brow. Interesting. So, the woman had seen fame before, but did not wish to keep it? Perhaps Xiulan should give mortals more credit than she had so far. She was always picking at their flaws, the very things that make them mortals in the first place, and even the natural inclinations that seem to spread wide and far among them. Titania, eh? Interesting. Perhaps things would start looking up in this realm of Ruula.

“I thank the Gods for that. From what I’ve seen, Terra seems to be a mess at the best of times.” Xiulan responded. Thoughts of Terra and frozen plains where rumors of frost golems not of the kind type ravaging it filled her mind. Hopefully her associates would take care of that problem some time soon so that the plan could continue. She motioned for her subordinate to bring over a suitcase. After he opened it, she pulled out a device, and pressed a button. From it projected a scene that wasn’t exactly what Xiulan wanted in terms of quality, but would achieve what Xiulan herself doing would cause too many questions to be asked - the reconstruction of a crime scene.

“While studying evolution one will learn that everything has a past and a future that traces back even before the conception of that thing. This device allows you to view the various stages of evolution. It’s a prototype right now, but it should give us an idea of what happened.” Xiulan said. She was concerned by the mention of a ‘Master Blaster’. Some kind of weapon?

The scene before her answered that question as the projection fizzled out into static before resetting. Xiulan paused it, and exhaled heavily.

“I see.” She said. The faces of the people in the projection were blurry. It’d be so much easier just to do this herself, to get more detail, or to even have a more sophisticated device, but she couldn’t. Not right now. She had to ‘develop’ a more sophisticated version of this device to do what she needed to.

“We need to acquire that weapon at all costs, Ms. Brightsmith.” Xiulan continued.

“Shall I rewind it? After a time it will become more distorted, but we could perhaps garner valuable information.” She said. The device relied upon forensic evidence, energy scans, emotional resonance, and could harness slight temporal capabilities to provide color to thing and make the projection more detailed. Unfortunately, it still had its limits, and they were quite severe.

At that moment, they heard a roar of a creature coming from above them. Both Titania and Xiulan could look up to notice a figure flying above them and descending quite rapidly. As it zoomed closer, more people started to recognize the purple dragon descending upon them that was known as an Aerodactyl. As the wind gusts of the Pokemon's flapping wings could be felt, the people would recognize the face of the one that was riding it. The snow white hair was telling enough, but the sharp blue eyes gave the teen an iconic imagery of his own. He wore a white T-Shirt and blue jeans seemingly by design, like he was supplementing his natural features. But what might even be more iconic than he was the one that was on his shoulder.

"Squirr squirr!" Lucky exclaimed, pointing towards the charred remnants of the building they were landing next to.

"I know, buddy," Winter nodded in agreement, "That's pretty nuts."

The flapping of the wings stopped as the teen finally landed, sliding off the Aerodactyl. He turned back to face what was obviously his own Pokemon and patted his back.

"Thanks Rio," he grinned, "Always appreciate ya."

Rio grunted contently in response before the flash of red enveloped him and he disappeared back into the PokeBall. Now Winter turned to face the two women, easily recognizing one of them. His eyes lit up and the grin turned into a full blown smile.

"Titania!" he exclaimed with jubilee, "Long time no see! I thought you were down in Alola doing your own thing."

He remained vague about what in particular she was doing down there, knowing full well she preferred to be left alone. In stride, he stepped forward, extending a hand for the former Champion to shake. Even though he did claim the title from her as the Indigo Champion, he still held her in high regard and respected her deeply.

Lectre Mansion Grounds,
Wing City,
Terra

Whispers of the names ‘Sinhai’ and ‘Song’ echoed throughout finer society in Wing City, and those of society that while not so ‘fine’ still were in the know perhaps as a job, perhaps because of a friend, or perhaps they were just curious of the workings of their chaotic little world. It was unknown who these people were to much of Wing City, if not all of them. Some people aware of the happenings on Origin might here whisper of the House Song, who possessed many human servants in a vast network and whom the members of were rarely seen, but they were few and far between. In fact, they were so few that their knowledge likely would not reach very far. A new era was dawning for the Lectre mansion grounds, and Wing City could watch up while preparations unraveled.

A new beauty would be brought to the mansion grounds as they were redefined by the very transcendency that their new owners thought would be appropriate, thought would tell everyone of their goals, of what they wished to craft in the long run even if no one was aware of the bigger picture one could glimpse through Lectre. Advanced technology combined with sorcery, not one but instead separate this time around, fueled the restructuring of the ground, of all that was on and near Lectre into something more beautiful - something that would fit the needs, wants, and embody the dreams of those that would come to inhabit the Lectre manor grounds. The preparations would not take long in the face of the capabilities that the Sinhai and their many peoples possessed, as such was the way that the world worked when faced with the very power to control it to its very core. The end result was something that could be used to create, to destroy, or simply to beautify. In this place, the action taken was more along the route of creation and beautification as hydrogen, oxygen, and new trees were brought in, as soil was enriched, as life was brought, as shielding was erected, and as buildings were built.

Underneath the Lectre manor grounds a secret would be present, however, and it would be inaccessible to all but those who knew of it, undetectable to even the most capable of entities, and not a trace of it would be tasted in the air unless something could cause suspicion of its existence to arise. There would be laboratories for various purposes, engineering rooms and forges, armories, quarters, transport pads, command rooms, an area from which vehicles could launch, and various underground levels protected by that shield that would protect the upper grounds, thick walls, and technologies that would allow Lectre to become another bastion for the Sinhai. The best part was that even a satellite view of the grounds at a time when vehicles were being launched as the ground opened up would not reveal that they were being launched, as was the nature of the shield. Lectre was becoming something a bit different, and many would see that it was a necessity in the long run. Until then, however, Lectre would be manor grounds - well, they’d always be manor grounds. Secrecy was the power of the Sinhai, after all.