Yuri leaned over to the Fennekin and whispered, "Did I just unwittingly betray my Pokémon on my first day? How could you do this?" He then grinned widely and made another note which simply read "traitor".

"Well, I guess that depends on where your loyalties lie. Personally, I've never been too into it, but it's part of guild culture. Once the supervisors leave, the inter-guild trash talk begins.", Kira said, chuckling.

"We're trying to get Kira to socialize more.", Leslie said, "Yuri, want to learn a thing or two about Temporal Sensor maintenance before your formal guild tour? Kira would like to show you around!", Kira smiled, rolled her eyes, and nodded.

"Yes, please! Matter of fact, I wouldn't mind learning even three things." Yuri laughed at his own attempt at humor before settling down again. However, he did start to dance a little in excitement.

"To the laboratory!", Leslie shouted as she ran off and up the stairs. Kira led Yuri into the elevator.

The laboratory was a pristine white room with a multitude of computers and other electronic equipment. At one of the benches were eight identical metal cylinders, each a meter long and bearing translucent stripes cut lengthwise into the metal casing. A Sylveon was already waiting for Kira, along with Leslie.

"This is Ella, our head of research and, aside from me, one of the only engineers authorized to modify the sensors." Kira said, "Ella, meet Yuri, our new guild recruit!"

"Nice to meet you!" Yuri said while jotting down a quick flurry of notes. His attention was pulled to the array of science-y setup of the room and he takes a few seconds to really glance around. "There is so much going on in here! Is this where you work, Kira?"

"Yeah, this is where we spend most of of our time, except Ella, she gets her own office now that she's been promoted to the boss.", Kira joked as she opened a drawer and pulled out a toolbox. She grabbed one of the metal boxes from the cart and walked over to the leftmost sensor. Ella did the same, focusing on the rightmost sensor. "This is the new sensor controller that will enable TSI, that's 'temporal sensor and interface' functionality. Fun fact, temporal interfaces, things that have the ability to change the time stream at their most basic level, is already built into the sensors to improve their, well, sensing functionality, but the function of the interfaces is limited because the government prohibited modifying the time stream. Now that it's been allowed for research purposes and to correct any errors in the time stream as they appear, these new controllers will unlock that ability. Think of it as unleashing the miniature, computer controlled Dialga in these gadgets!"

"All that power, such a small machine in comparison." Yuri followed Kira and tried to peek inside the toolbox. "What kind of things are you looking for with update? How do you know if there's an error? This job seems so..." he paused for a second, "sophisticated!"

The Riolu tried to take a closer look at the sensor Kira and he were in front of. "Why do you need eight of them?"

"We'll perform a full suite of diagnostics before these things go into service, we'll catch any errors before they become problems. You'd be surprised by the amount of power these things require. The generators we have in the basement make your standard electric-type Pokémon seem like button-cell batteries.", Kira replied, eyes focused on her work, "When they're installed in the sensor tower and connected to a single control system, their scanning ranges merge together to form a complex network that is orders of magnitude more precise than the eight sensors by themselves."

"The Expedition society only have two!", Leslie interrupted, "So we already have them beat in that department!"

As Kira spoke, she gently unscrewed the bottom cover of one of the sensors, and carefully pulled out a mesmerizingly complex but orderly mesh of transparent columns and metallic pieces that formed what could be described as a cylindrical stack of hollow pyramid structures, wrapping around a central, cylindrical core. This mesh was divided into two parts, and in the middle, was connected by colorful wires to a metal box that looked identical to the controllers in the cart, among other components that reminded one of the props in a science fiction movie. Kira gently disconnected the wires and uninstalled the old controller, placing the new one in its place.

Yuri nodded fervently as Kira spoke despite understanding very little. He took the chance to write down a couple words and make a quick sketch of some of the things he saw her handling. After he was satisfied with his notes, the Riolu observed the more intricate parts of the sensor. "The wires almost remind me of a mystery dungeon," he said, mesmerized. "All the complexity, beauty, and, well, mystery is so intriguing. Despite the differences in what you two and the Expedition society do, don't you think that it's at least similar in that respect?"

"I'd say so, them and us share a desire to discover the undiscovered, to lift the mystery from this amazing world of ours. We do it in different ways, and uncover different things, but that's what matters. There would be no discovery if both organizations did the exact same things in the exact same ways. There's no real hostility between us, only some lighthearted jokes.", Kira said as she closed up the first sensor and moved on to the next one.

"I wish that everyone could see life the same way," Yuri added somewhat wistfully. He watched Kira quietly for a while longer. "Is it okay if I look at the other equipment around the room? I promise not to touch anything."

"Sure, other than the sensors there isn't anything too dangerous or sensitive in here.", Kira said.

After hearing Kira's affirmative, the Riolu hurried over to some of the strange looking equipment he saw earlier, notepad in hand. He waited for a while before systematically stopping before batches of machines to draw small pictures of them, document his thoughts, and on occasion, just stand in silence with his eyes closed.

"And... done!", Ella shouted in the background, "Leslie, I want you to take a picture and send the most pretentious, in-your-face message about finishing the sensor upgrade to the chat!"

Hearing Ella's exclamation, Yuri hurried back towards the sensors. "I'd love to hear said message," he said as he looked at what Kira and Ella had now apparently completed.

Unsurprisingly, he had no idea.

"How's this...", Leslie began, "Don't mind us, just admiring the first TSI to exist in the world, and the second, third, all the way up the the eighth!"

"Ouch. They might need a Rawst berry for that!" the Riolu said. "By the way, what is this group chat I keep hearing about?"

"It's nothing special, just a 'hangout' room for the various temporal researchers for the world, hosted on a high-security server because otherwise the higher-ups get too paranoid about information leakage. It's more of a forum that updates in real time than a text chat.", Kira said as she handed the Riolu her tablet. The message window looked similar to a regular text message thread, with the title of "Temporal Interface Legalization Day!". The community was called "Dialga Wannabes".

"This is very, um, self aware," the Riolu said. He starts to read some of the messages before stopping. "Am I allowed to see this? Not that I understand the more specific details of... temporal research. Or temporal anything, for that matter."

Yuri handed the tablet back.

"We're not allowed to say anything under NDA in that community anyway, so go ahead.", Kira assured.

"NDA, yes." Yuri, once again tried to scroll through the chat messages. A few things manage to catch his attention that he took a minute or two to read through. Meanwhile, the researchers cleaned up their work space.

"Trying to talk to all these Pokémon seems exhausting."

"This was a special occasion, though. Can't blame us for getting excited. It's usually a lot more relaxed.", Kira said.

Yuri laughed a little. "I guess you're right." He handed the tablet back to the Fennekin.

"So, I guess I'm not needed here for the time being. What do you say I give you a tour of the guild?", Kira asked.

"I'm all for it! Thanks, once again, for showing me around," Yuri replied.