The Works

Valve Vlanderson shrugged his shoulders.

Ahahahahaha! Ahahahahahaha! Of course we're not alon-eh!

He didn't see the attack coming, and Arielle instinctively covered herself with her arms as she got knocked back again. This time, nearly off the edge of the platform they were on.

Of course, Valve was quick to react and managed to grab her by her arm before she fell further. However, she seemed out of it entirely, her eyes now those characteristic swirls of defeat.

Arielle!

He managed to look over his shoulder though at Jennifer.

Hahaha! You nailed us good! We must concede defeat, I don't think she can fight longer.

Valve Vlanderson pulled the Gardevoir up and into his arms. Carrying her like a princess of course, he took a seat on whatever the closest object suitable for sitting on was. Laying Arielle on his lap, he tended to her wounds this time, fetching a small bottle of a fizzy liquid, a small diamond shaped item colored yellow, and a Luxury Ball.

I'll take care of you, then we'll get going Arielle. You did good.

Once he finished, he had to leave, and attempted to find his way out. Who knows if he succeeded?

Valve could likely find his way out, though--Perhaps he'd notice that the entrance almost seemed to have moved several meters since he'd originally entered. How strange. Despite this, there was still a clear path out, almost as if the entire works had rotated--But of course, that made no sense! Gravity would take issue with such a thing... right?

Matt Flamer seeing that the battle was over as soon he got up looked at Shinx who kept the light around them bright "so should we keep exploring or what shinx ?"he asked it

Shinx;thought about this "shinx shinx "as in saying to keep exploring the place more just hope we don't get lost in here

Now that that was over, it was time to check out those lights as a Klinklang floated by. Amazing. Jennifer had never seen one in the wild before! Still, adventure awaited as her tummy grumbled. "All right, Castle. We check out the lights and that's it, okay? Return." There were some tight quarters ahead, after all, and Jennifer's heart was pounding by the time she got all the way down.

As a famous hero of old once lamented, "going to Hell is easy, but coming back is hard."

As Jennifer descended she would begin to hear a low humming noise, warm and inhuman in nature. It sounded as if something very large were moving ever so slowly, the somewhat quiet hum coming vaguely from far away above her. She might not even notice it if she wasn't paying attention really.

Yet, around this time she would come into sight of what appears to be a teenage girl fiddling with one of the massive computers scattered around the area. She appeared to be in a rush, having broken open a panel. Upon closer inspection Jennifer might notice her metallic skin or perhaps her blue eyes glowing dimly in the relative darkness, casting a gentle blue glow on the machine's wall. She didn't appear to realize Jennifer was there, too focused on her work. She appeared to be attempting to connect her fingers to ripped wires.

Clearly the newest steel type pokemon had just presented itself.

Jennifer was amazed. So what she had just faked out Valve with was real after all. "Castle, get back in your Pokeball. I can't carry you in my current state." A red glow suffused the Bastiodon as it melted away into its happy place. Now she knew she had to be careful, what with the exposed live wires.

"Um...uh, excuse me, but you should probably ground those before you go any further. You might hurt yourself," she meekly offered to the busy girl, not wishing to startle her into making a crucial error by being loud. "Or worse, you could hurt me if a live wire touches this gear." Shit. There was no place to ground a wire around here, was there? And it wasn't like she could just turn off the power, given the nature of this bizarre place.

"What are you trying to do, anyway?"

The oddly colored girl seemed to jump at the sound of Jennifer's voice, very easily startled in spite of the lack of effort on Jennifer's part. She turned and flashed supernaturally glowing eyes at Jennifer, drawing a vast deal of attention to her condition. She appeared to be actively trying to run those wires through her fingers, if things weren't already hilariously unsubtle enough. This left several burn marks on the synthetic skin of her fingertips though she didn't seem to feel this.

The artificial girl seemed to gawk for a moment as if searching for words. "...I--I don't want any trouble." she replied in an entirely defensive manner. She was acting as if Jenifer had... threatened her, reasons unknown. Brightly glowing eyes darted around in search of an escape route but the linear nature of the works only offered one, and it lead further in. Worse yet, she was clutching the wires in an almost possessive manner.

"I'm not like the others. Please..." the rogue android rambled out as if she believed Jennifer had any method of understanding that. She seemed to be very, very afraid of something.

Not...like the others? What could that possibly mean, anyway? "Um, if you don't mind telling me, who are these others that you're talking about?" Jennifer hopped up to a separate cog so she wouldn't get shocked in case of an accident on the other girl's part. Besides, those glowing blue eyes were freaking her out. And the metallic sheen to the skin, well, that was just weird.

"Please. I don't want you to die down here. I'm just about ready to head back up and out myself. Now that I know you're down here, I can't just leave you." Jennifer started coughing as the foul air took its toll on her lungs. "Ugh. Bleah. Now I know how the Oreburgh coal miners felt," the woman lamented to no one in particular.

"Not like I'm in any shape to start trouble, but I guess I could use a rest. What's the machine supposed to do?" Jennifer tried diverting the conversation to small talk in order to diffuse the reactionary defensiveness the girl exhibited. Was nobody else supposed to be down here? And if so, who gave HER of all people permission to traipse this far?

The odd girl seemed taken off guard and perhaps confused. For a moment she was once again rendered a gawking fool. She began to speak, but her words became slurred and she seemed to drift off into space where she stood as if she'd just fallen asleep with her eyes open. No valuable information could be discerned through what little she'd gotten out.

Abruptly she snapped back to attention as if startled by something. "I'm not fully functional." she offers, nervously apologetic in tone. "This place is toxicly enervating. These machines... they're the only source of life in this place." she explains, now somber in tone. The somewhat creepy android fiddled with the exposed wires for a moment before unceremoniously shoving them back into the breached metal casing of the large computer. It looked as if something of great strength had punched straight through it.

The robot seemed torn. She was very good at emulating human facial expressions, offering at least one major redeeming factor dragging her out of uncanny valley in the form of soothingly realistic body language. "...I'll come." she starts in a concerned tone. "But will you make sure no one hurts me?" she then quickly adds. Judging by the tone of her voice, one might presume she had reason to believe she was being hunted.

...In spite of her slightly eerie experience, could one really be afraid of someone who acted so pathetically human?

"Of course I will," Jennifer nodded reassuringly before coughing a few more times. "But could we talk on the way? There's a lot of things I want to ask you."

An escape rope was useless here due to the turning gears, but it would serve as a useful leg up. "Hang on tight," Jennifer cried out as she tossed the rope up. "Quickly, up the rope. I'm not sure how long this is gonna hold." She started shimmying upwards, hoping, praying that the other girl wasn't so addled to not follow suit.

The android girl did not hesitate. She quickly nodded, simultaneously moving forward to join Jennifer. "Yes, with a fair ammount of haste if that's alright..." she replied in an ever so slightly meek tone as she began following Jennifer up the rope. She scaled the rope like a monkey, a feat that would've been impressive from a trained athlete let alone this girl whom by all accounts did not look like she worked out visually speaking. "My auxillary battery is not rechargeable." DIN-05.2 Rosa quickly added, all matter-o-fact like. She did not appear aware of having just said something alarming.

"Batteries? What the heck are you talking about? People don't run on batteries." Either Jennifer was oblivious to these strange mannerisms or she was simply in denial about Rosa's true nature. "Whoa, look out!" she cried, and was forced to drop down to the last gear as the window above them promptly closed due to the moving gears, snapping the Escape Rope in half.

"Man. I couldn't climb fast enough. My batteries need recharging too," Jennifer joked half-heartedly. "This would be so much easier if we had a Pokemon that could teleport us out of here." A Magnemite floated by. "Hey, that's it! Magnemite can generate a field that lets them float! If we caught one, we can float right on out of here!"

DIN-05.2 glanced at the magnemite. She seemed to process this idea for a mere moment before speaking.

"Yes."

Producing a ball, she released a lucario. The bipedal pokemon balled her hands into fists pre-emptively. "Take it out with a vacuum wave." 'White' ordered calmly. The lucario shifted back in recoil before launching an incomprehensible amount of punches in a short period of time, distorting air around her fists and launching invisible vacuum projectiles at the magnemite. The magnet pokemon took the attack with all the grace of a brick trying to swim, flailing and spinning about as it was struck and it's magnetic levitation promptly went haywire. Each punch seemed to launch it several feet in a random direction as it lost control of itself before finally it abruptly, violently rocketed into a nearby gear with a loud clank, immediately crashing into another gear below it where the pokemon lay, fainted.

DIN-05.2 promptly tossed out a ball, capturing it. She had battled with a sort of calm, collected grace unfitting for the frightened girl Jennifer had picked up earlier. She held the ball out to her lucario, ordering the pokemon to use heal pulse. She then promptly handed it to Jennifer.

"You should have this..." she remarked softly, moving to return her lucario. She seemed to have become slightly meek again now that the fight was over. Turning to Jennifer, she spoke up in an ever so innocently matter-o-fact tone.

"My full name is DIN-05.2 'White'." she expressed, spelling her model name out one letter/number at a time. "I am... synthetic, a 'robot'. I am not a... 'person'." she proceeded to explain, a troubled tint leaking into her tone. "This place... was my sanctuary. The creators wished to destroy me. I do not have rights in the human creators world. Internal notes suggest the creators believed I was 73% complete at the time of my being discontinued. Several of my core systems are not functional. I am not capable of indefinite function in my current state." she went on in an informative tone.

Suddenly, DIN-05.2 bowed her head apologetically. "I did not mean to deceive you, creator." she replied very deliberately.

Jennifer smiled. "That's awesome, White. Now let's get the hell out of here before one of us malfunctions."

She tossed up another escape rope and climbed as fast as she could manage, grinning to herself when the rope was squeezed but not snapped in half by the gears above. Eventually she wanted to work her way to the side of the chasm, but with both her and White running low on their respective batteries, they had to hurry.

"White, release your Magnemite. If my calculations are correct, the magnet power should be enough to hold on to the grappling hook and we can just float on out of here."

DIN-05.2 produced the ball of the aforementioned magnemite, sending it out. "Hmm..." she muttered, seeming to consider something for a moment. She then proceeded to reach out and gently poke the magnemite with one finger, bridging an electrical connection between the two for all but a moment. The magnemite seemed to flinch, but quickly scurried off to grasp ahold of the metal hook using it's magnetism. White seemed pleased with her little experiment and moved to tug the rope in a very deliberate manner, testing it's weight. The magnemite seemed to struggle very hard for a moment but soon recovered it's sense of flotation.

"The magnemite seems to be strong enough, creator." she offered Jennifer before decidedly hopping onto the rope fully. This time the magnemite only floundered for a moment. She promptly climbed higher, displaying her uncanny speed as she made room for the other. If Jennifer hesitated or displayed any difficulty getting on DIN-05.2 would lean down and offer a hand.

Jennifer only paused for a moment as she started up the rope to cough up a lung, or at least that's how it felt. Being down here for so long, and just now coming up to the aftereffects of Castle's Toxic attack from the battle earlier...she was not happy. "Don't...don't mind me," she croaked. "K-keep going. Mag..." *cough wheeze cough* "y-you're doing fine...Magnemite..." What a trooper.

DIN-05.2 looked down, eyes glowing in the darkness and shining down to give her a better view of the sick trainer. She frowned, internally running several calculations. If Jennifer as having trouble breathing her strength was going to fail her. Given her weight and what little the android could gather she made the difficult decision to presume a lack of strength could be a threat to Jennifer's life. If not the drop, than the amount of time wasted recovering from a fall could prove to be a problem.

The android loosened her grips, pre-emptively preparing to catch Jennifer if she fell. The magnemite almost seemed to bring them deeper into the works as it went on, a troubling sensation but it only lasted a couple of moments at best. Suddenly sunlight shone down on them from an entrance hole above. They had found it, the exit!

Just as magnemite cleared the entrance something unexpected happened however; it abruptly yanked free of the grappling hook, speeding off into the distance as gravity violently yanked the two girls towards certain death over a large drop.

...Well shit!

Two things happened. DIN-05.2's inhuman reaction speed kicked in and she quickly observed the path of the dislodged grappling hook as having passed over the lip of the entrance. She then immediately took a wild guess and presumed Jennifer might have a hard time hanging on while simultaneously hacking up a lung and violently decelerating. She lashed out, literally grabbing Jennifer with her thighs just before the grappling hook caught, bringing them to a rather violent stop. She of course had the strength to deal with this.

Assuming Jennifer was alright, she would simply let go once she was sure the other had a grip and wasn't about to plummet into the abyss. Alternatively, she'd have to perform some herculian climbing antics and scale that rope while carrying Jenn. Either way, she'd make it happen. Pulling herself over the edge, she'd offer to help Jennifer up.

"...That was unexpected--The magnemite appears to have abandoned us." DIN-05.2 remarked thoughtfully, gazing off into the distance in search of the traitorous pokemon. It was nowhere to be seen. "Creator, are you alright..?" she then proceeded to ask, a hint of concern in her voice. She seemed to be concerned about all that hacking and coughing Jennifer was doing.

"I'm..." *cough cough* "...thanks, White. I got your ankle." The other hand was reflexively covering her mouth. "COUGH COUGH. I...it's...not much longer...we can climb right?" The hand on White's ankle moved towards the rope. "Mistralton City shouldn't be far from here. I...I can rest there," she gasped before descending into another coughing fit.

"Must...get out of here..." she groaned. Then an idea hit her. She tossed a pokeball up to the lip, releasing her trusty Bastiodon partner. "C-Castle! Grab the rope and haul us out!" Being a 330-pound pokemon, it of course had the muscle to manage to pull the two humanoids out, holding the rope in its underbitten mouth. They weighed, what, 250 between them? 300, tops, depending on what was in the android.

"G-good boy," Jennifer gasped as the two were reunited with the solid ground inside Chargestone Cave proper. "Now, White, return Magnemite. That one's yours to keep..." she managed before falling to her knees, coughing so hard that blood stained the ground. She was crawling for the exit, willing herself that last little bit of distance from here to the Pokemon Center and Castle scaring away any wild Klink that were attracted by the noise.

Jennifer knew she couldn't last much longer. But staying here was by far the less desirable option.

DIN-05.2 frowned, once again glancing over her shoulder in search for the magnemite that simply was not there. She observed the coughing, observed the blood. Conclusions were reached. Decisions were made. Jennifer lay before her in a vulnerable position. If she'd had any malicious intention, she couldn't have picked a better time. The android bent over and placed a hand on the fallen girl's shoulder to stop her pathetic crawl.

"Creator, allow me to help you. I believe it is... necessary." she explained as she went about scooping the dangerously ill girl into her arms. She would first hold her with both arms before shifting her into one and beginning to walk. Extending two fingers on her free hand she pressed them against Jennifer's throat gently. They were cold, and would act as a very temporary cough suppressant.

She wasted no time and said very little. Perhaps Jennifer would be thankful for her professionalism.