Whirlipede - Entoma

Dwebble - Gargantua

Wimpod - Cocytus

Heracross - Kyouhukou

Ribombee - Leinas

Today is another day. And with another day, comes another problem. Specifically, I now have to explain what in God's name a Pheromosa is doing following me. I had bought myself a bit of time with my diversion about information security, but that would only hold out for so long.

We had stayed at Nacrene City for another night, but sleep didn't bring me any miraculous visions on how to explain away Pheromosa in a way that didn't expose my extradimensional peculiarities or make me put in more effort than I cared to. Much easier to maintain normal conversation if you're just a normal person.

We now wandered down Route 3, crossing a substantial bridge. Nothing quite as impressive as the Skyarrow, but a decent size regardless. Other than us, the bridge was devoid of any travelers. So, Roxie hopped up and sat herself down on the railing, asking me, "Alright, now you mind explaining?"

Ah, hell. I was hoping to at least get to that cave up in the distance where the first Team Plasma fight in-game was or something.

"Alright, frankly, I'm not entirely sure what it is. Back on Alola, I had just caught Cocytus, and we rested up at a beach. Once I got up, I figured I'd head back to town. On my way over, this weird portal-thingy popped up in front of me, and next thing I know, there's this tall-ass bug woman thing just standing in front of me.

"I had some of my team out, and Gargantua charged at her or something, I can't quite remember. It's a bit of a blur at this point. Regardless, Gargantua and Entoma got absolutely trounced. That's actually when Entoma evolved, but even that wasn't even nearly close to beating her. Still, we managed to coat her in Toxic, but that didn't seem to do anything but make her angry.

"After fighting both of them, she started walking over to me, about to beat me the same, I imagine. I'm scrambling for Cocytus' ball at this point, and accidentally grab a pearl that I had in my pocket, long story, don't worry about it. I'm still panicking, and so I offer the pearl for my fragile body's safety."

She snorted at that, to which I glowered back.

"Anyway, the pearl seemed to be valuable enough for her to only cause a bit of mild internal bleeding through a single kick. Or, at least the Pokémon Center claimed so. Past that, she's been following me around, taking anything neat I found, occasionally showing up in little flashes, but ultimately too fast for me to really tell when she's around."

"Wait, wait, wait!" She seemed to restrain herself from giggling, "This Pokemon's been stealing your stuff?"

"That's what you care about? Yea, swiped some honey and a neat rock from me, it was pretty rude."

"Hah! That's great! Got a thief running around, takin' your stuff!" she laughed, completely absent of worry.

I couldn't help but be confused at this point, you don't usually hear about portals and absurdly powerful beings and just shrug that off, after all.

"You seem… unconcerned about this. Are you not worried about the Bug running around, faster than you can see?"

"Eh, can't be too big of a deal. She helped you against that Plasma dude, can't be that bad. My best guess was you had some kind of guardian angel following you around, or it was some sort of bodyguard, and you're actually the son of some crime lord in hiding, and this is a lot less interesting!"

I admit, I was a bit dumbfounded. I had expected a whole lot more indignation, or confusion, or something. "Really? Nothing? You're not surprised, worried?"

"Why would I be? Sure, it's a little weird, but nothing too spooky. Might be neat to meet her sometime, so long as she don't kick me too."

Damn, they must have bred the self-preservation out of these people. That absurdly short conversation over, Roxie hopped off the side of the bridge and back on the main part.

"Come on," she announced, "better not waste time, let's get moving!"

We continued down the route, on our merry way to Striaton City. There was some lovely scenery, especially with the river, but nothing really worth stopping for. I'm pretty sure I've been spoiled by Alola. You don't get to see gorgeous islands and tropical scenes and then be dumbfounded by some little river. Still, I could at least recognize it was lovely, which is better than nothing.

Of course, it probably didn't help that I was still a little stressed with the whole "revealing that something that's technically not a god is following me around" talk. I presume Roxie realized that because the conversation veered away from that topic and into more trivial small talk.

That's not to say the discussion of the destructive impact of approximately five-hundred Voltorb wasn't entertaining, of course. She seemed to think the explosive potential would coalesce into a single, massive explosion akin to a nuke, not that she knew what a nuke was. I firmly believe that it would function more like a Minecraft TNT bomb and launch Voltorb all over, which would then ignite more (because how could you ensure they all go off at once?) and create a shrapnel bomb, but replace the shrapnel with unfortunate Voltorb.

Before we could come to a conclusion on who was right (it was me, of course), we had already found ourselves walking by a large daycare center and into a fancy little garden area. "Striaton Gardens" was the name proudly displayed to all on the way in.

"Ohh, this is neat! I'd forgotten 'bout these!" Roxie was rather enthused at the discovery.

"Forgotten? Is there something special about this place?"

"Eh, not really. Straiton doesn't get all that much tourism outside gym-goers, but they keep trying to advertise these gardens to draw 'em in. I had just forgotten 'cause it ain't really my scene, ya' feel? Still, there ain't much to do in this corner of Unova, might not get a choice but to sit around a fountain."

Yea, nah, gardens aren't exactly my first choice either. Too much artificiality, I think. There's a certain something to having a sense of natural influence that something as maintained as a garden simply doesn't have. But, if there's nothing else to do... Wait. Well, what's more natural of an influence than time? Should be more of Roxie's "scene" too.

"Well," I begin, "I may be wrong, but I recall some big, abandoned building complex over to the east of Striaton. Don't know what happened, but there's a whole ruin and everything. Could be neat to visit instead."

Roxie eyed me with more than a little interest, before saying, "I haven't heard of that, actually. Now ya' got me int-er-est-ed! I know you got the whole Gym battle thing, do we want to do that before, or after?"

Now that raises an interesting question. I've got the Larvesta egg, so no need to try and visit that island in the middle of nowhere. All that's out there is the researcher's lab for Juniper, and we aren't the lucky ones who got a Pokedex. But, that leaves me with a major issue. See, I'm a bit of a completionist. I didn't feel the urge back in Alola to check out everything, but I was mainly there to catch some Pokémon, and I was well and truly bone-tired by the end of it all.

So much walking, so few sights to see.

Plus, I'll admit to having a little bit of nostalgia for Unova. Main game series as a kid, all that. There might not be much south of Striaton, but could I keep myself away from a quick visit?

"I'm thinking of doing it before. We'll go explore that whole thing, go down through Accumula and Nuvema, just a quick look-see. Loop around, take on Striaton just after."

Evidently, I could not.

Roxie hummed, replying, "Sounds good to me. Any reason to head on through there? Accumula is just retirement-land if I remember right, and Nuvema is that one professor's town, so I'm not sure what'd be cool about it."

"Honestly, don't have much of a reason. It was more of a 'while we're here, may as well' sort of thing."

"Ah yea, I get you."

The gardens were nice, for the minute or two we spent going through the city. Big fountain in the center, streams of water flowing all throughout. Weren't all that many flowers, it was more of a hedge-and-bush garden, but a few of those bushes were roses. I would have let Leninas out to play for a bit, but I wasn't all that sure of the regulations involved with Pokémon.

Striaton itself was a bit unique. It seemed to be just as much residential as it was commercial. The dark apartment complexes didn't so much tower as they did stand tall, and scattered between them were various services. A trainer school here, a restaurant there, and the... official Cryogonal fan club? Interesting choice for a fan club focus, but I'm the dude with a bunch of bugs, so I don't have much to stand on.

Regardless, it was a lovely little city, and a fair bit more populated than portrayed in the games. It wasn't like Castelia, where you had to weave in and out of crowds, but having to scoot past another group on the sidewalk was a common occurrence on our way straight through.

Despite all that, we found our way through the city with the only real distraction being Roxie getting clocked in the head by a stray Cryogonal T-shirt thrown by a particularly rabid fan. I told her she ought to be happy to get a new T-shirt, but I believe she didn't care for my pragmatics much right then.

It took a quick bit of investigation, but we found ourselves a lovely little trail leading to what I knew was the Dreamyard. The fellow who gave us the directions seemed to think it was haunted or cursed and tried to warn us away, but ironically that only made Roxie more interested.

"This idea is getting better by the second, Nico!" she excitedly chatted as we wandered the distinctly derelict trail.

I chuckled, "Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. Just, don't let the suspense kill you before the horrible curse of this place does."

That got a laugh out of her. "Alright, alright, I'll calm down a bit. Probably best to not get too loud and excited in an abandoned facility, attract all them wild Pokémon with my voice."

A blank gate soon appeared in our vision, a solid concrete arch with a metal gate that opened in the middle. The concrete cracked and crumbled in parts, and the left half of the gate had managed to come loose of the hinges and fallen on the ground, leaving the area perfectly accessible.

A small sign, layered with graffiti still stood posted in the ground. The original name of the facility was obscured by the makeshift art, but the phrase "The Dreamyard" was layered over the rest of the graffiti, as if it was reapplied after every vandalization that covered it.

"The Dreamyard, eh? Neat name, at least," I said out loud. Roxie nodded in agreement, but was distinctly distracted as she looked at the corroded hinges of the gate.

I heard her mutter to herself, "Could be natural, might not be. Hard to tell if it was a bit of carefully applied poison or just normal rust."

Fascinating. She really does know her stuff, does she not?

I meander past her, passing under the broken arch. Roxie followed behind, presumably losing interest in the hinge. It was hard to see much more than glimpses through the tall, thick trees and swathes of tall grass, but the full view of the empty Dreamyard was fascinating.

The games portrayed the facility as mostly an empty wreck, presumably for gameplay purposes, but the real thing was a lot more potentially dangerous. It only stood at two stories tall, with hallways and roofs caved in in parts, completely blocking the way through. The main facility branched out into large storage garages, presumably storing whatever product used to be produced. These also had portions of their roofs caved in and windows shattered.

Overall, excellent atmosphere, poor accessibility. 8/10 on the "abandoned facility" rating scale.

"Hey Rox, you probably have a bit more experience in plundering. Where should we go first?"

Roxie stroked an imaginary beard for a moment, pondering. After a bit, she replied, "First, we gotta try one of the garages. There's a good chance to find a door or two in there that leads to the rest. Probably won't lead to the whole thing, but we should save the climbing for a last resort," she smiled viciously, "after all, you'd probably slip and fall into a pile of glass or something."

"I appreciate your regard for my safety," I replied drily. "But, alright, let's start checking out the garages. What's our stance on property damage, by the way? Say we find a locked door, do we just want to blast through it?"

"Eh, let's try to keep it to a minimum. Tends to be some wild Pokémon around that wouldn't like us banging around, and I'd prefer to not get swarmed in here."

Hadn't considered that. Looking around, I did notice a couple Patrat popping up from the grass and peering at us occasionally. So, presumably, there would be a few wild Pokémon inhabiting the Dreamyard.

"Should we keep a Pokémon or two out while exploring?"

"If ya want. I usually like to keep Whirlipede stored up because of how big he is in tight areas. I think I'll have my Zubat out, now that you mention it."

Alright, so maneuverability in tight spaces, sufficient strength, maybe a bit of flight? Kyouhukou seems like a good option. Get a bit of bonding time, all that good stuff. By the time I managed to fish Kyou's ball from my bag, Roxie already had her Zubat circling her head.

I released the massive beetle, telling him that, "We're going to be exploring this place. Try and keep quiet, and bash anything that comes at us."

He was a bit irritated at the request to keep quiet, brightened up at the call to violence. A quick buzz of his wings signified his acceptance, and we continued on. There didn't seem to be much irritation as he followed behind us, which was nice.

The short walk over to the storage area had a few more Patrat, and even a Watchog peek out at us. Despite that, none of them seemed to care as long as we didn't head their way, and our soft steps into the facility were unimpeded.

The main shutter-style garage door was an option, but thankfully was unneeded. A smaller, human-sized door just to the side of it was opened with a twist of the doorknob firm shove from Roxie, evidently left unlocked upon the abandonment or had been unlocked otherwise later on.

That's an idea, I should learn lockpicking. Never know when you need to break in without brute force.

The building was, well, abandoned. I was hoping for something interesting, but it wasn't all that impressive. Other than a few barrels and bits of roofing that had fallen in, it was distinctly empty.

I walked over to the barrels to see what they were all about. Leaning down, I dusted off the side of the barrel, where under an impressive layer of dust some lettering could vaguely be made out. Before I could read, though, I was interrupted by a howling cat.

"MREOW!"

A Purrloin, evidently laying hidden in the barrels, had seemed to have taken by investigation of the barrels as a threat to it's domicile. Before I could even attempt to react beyond an instinctual flinch, it had hopped into the air and raked my face with a rather painful scratch attack.

An impressively fast chop landed on its head immediately after, sending it to the floor with the velocity of a smash character hit with a Ganondorf down-air.

"Oh, fuck, shit, gah, bitch!"

I didn't take all that kindly to being scratched, jerking away and falling right on my ass while yelling obscenities. I scrambled away for a second before finally noticing the Purrloin's distinctly unconscious form laying on the ground. Kyou had the gall to look vaguely amused with the situation.

"Ay Nico, you good, you good?" Roxie had hurried over after hearing me cry out. Next thing I knew, I'd been pulled to my feet and she was inspecting my face. "Eh, not all that bad. Might scar, probably not." Not sure where she got a rag, but she placed it on my face before instructing me to "keep some pressure on it. Still want to keep going?"

"Oh, yea, yea, just give me a minute," I said. Honestly, now that my heart rate was going down, it wasn't too big a deal. Leinas could heal me up with some Pollen Puffs later, it ain't a big deal. "I'll just need to be a bit more careful, I suppose."

I took a couple steps back to the barrels, taking appropriate caution this time. The bit of barrel I had brushed clean just seconds ago had become readable, with a branding of "Striaton Oil and Chemical Plant" plastered on it.

"Oil and chemical? Fascinating, fascinating," I muttered.

"This was an oil-chem plant?" Roxie questioned. "I guess that explains why it's out of business. Just a waste compared to Pokémon-based plants."

"Gives us a bit of a time-frame of operation, at least. When were Pokéballs invented, again?"

"Some fifty or so years ago," she looked at me, amused. "You must have been terrible in your history classes."

"Irrelevant." Technically true, as I had never taken a Pokémon history class. "Still, that means this place has been abandoned for fifty-something years. Wonder if there's some more info in here.

"Oh, nah, it's probably been less time."

I looked at her, befuddled.

"Well, it takes a bit of time for the Poké-plants to get into operation. Took like a half-decade or so for Virbank's electrical plant to get running, and that's with forty or so years of advancement. What probably happened was this place was still in operation till the war, then got knocked out of commission by someone attacking the supply chain. By the time it was back, the Poké-plants were more efficient."

Huh, that's the second time I heard about the war. I do wonder how much she knows about it.

Mistaking my curious look at her about the war for curiosity about her, she said, "Hey, don't give me that look! Virbank has two kinds of people. Old scientists and old sailors. I've heard the history of industrial plants and all that dozens of times over when I was training in the complex."

"Sorry, sorry, just a little surprised. Good to know, though. Maybe we'll get a bit more information going through the building?"

"That's... a possibility. I doubt we'll run into anything classified, but I'm sure there's something to be found. These sorts are known for being bad at clearing things out."

By the time our little conversation was over, the bleeding had slowed a fair bit. Not completely, but enough that the rag wasn't going to be completely soaked and I could get a nice scab going soon.

"Right, you seem good enough now," Roxie reassured herself. "Follow me, while you were getting yourself attacked, I found our way in. This time, follow me and tell me before you run off. I can't trust you to keep yourself safe no more."

It's a bit irritating to be infantilized like that, admittedly. Still, I was the one with a scratch on my face and significantly less experienced in the art of trespassing on abandoned property. Wait, is this trespassing? I hadn't really considered the legality, just the entertainment value. How unusual.

Regardless, we went up a couple of stairs, Roxie kicked in a door, which was rather impressive, and we followed through in a single-file line, Roxie first, me second, and Kyouhukou third. Of course, her little Zubat was perched on her hair in an adorable fashion.

The aforementioned door led into a moderately-sized, blank hallway, opening up into a larger room that was mostly empty. Some shattered windows let in a bit of dim light onto the grey, crumbling walls, but a thin layer of shadow threatened to permeate the room as soon as a cloud or tree blocked the light. In other words, it was an ominous, decaying building, and made me a little spooked instinctually.

That room didn't hold anything of importance. Just some shattered glass, broken tile, dangerously exposed wiring, and disappointment. What was more important were the two sets of doors. Normally, I would suggest pulling a Scooby-Doo and splitting up, but with her sudden concern for my safety, that was unlikely to happen.

Also, considering what happens in the Scooby-Doo episodes, it's probably a poor idea to split up.

With a little contemplation, we realized it really didn't matter what door we went through, and just started picking them based on which was closest. It was a fun little exploration sequence, very rogue-like, without the whole restart on death thing. Or, at least I presume, as I didn't get the chance to die, despite the impressive amount of wild Pokémon in the maze-like facility.

A real shame, I know.

Then, we found something interesting. A rather amusing encounter with a Watchog and a couple of Patrat ended with Kyou scooping up the leader with his horn and doing the whole 'stag beetle launch' thing. The Patrat scurried away, presuming their leader's defeat.

Why did they presume that, you may ask? It's quite simple, Kyou managed to launch the Watchog with enough force to bust through an entire fucking wall. Mind you, upon inspection, it was only moderately thick drywall, but still rather impressive.

What was more impressive was the hole in the wall that led to a tiny room with a door and a set of downward leading stairs, all lit up by what appeared to be an old lightbulb. We had Kyou bust open his impromptu entrance a bit wider, and climbed through. Upon inspection, the door revealed to open up into a room we'd already visited, but when closed appeared to be an innocuous wall.

So, secret passage discovered! It really was a dungeon crawler, eh?

But, well, it got a little strange once we got down the stairs.

"W-what is all this?" Roxie questioned.

The stairs led down rather deeply, until it emerged into a strange lab-like area. It had those massive chambers you only see in fiction, you know the type. Those cloning ones where you suspend someone in liquid. Aside from those, there was a bunch of tables and file cabinets, and shelves full of chemicals and boxes.

There certainly was some disorder in the rather large room, but hardly anything like the rest of the dreamyard. A few papers lying around, a few unused beakers, and a few things that had obviously broken down with the onset of time, with a thick layer of dust all over it.

The air was stale, the light flickered, but nothing happened. This room was well and truly lost to time.

"I'm not entirely sure," I responded to her rhetorical question. "Best guess is some sort of secret research lab."

She looked mildly irritated by my casual response, replying, "Really? Wouldn't have guessed."

"You did ask."

Her eyes rolled, then she said, "Alright, let's see what's going on here."

She walked over to the file cabinets and motioned for me to follow.

"You search that one," she pointed to a file cabinet, "and I'll search this one, we'll go from there. If you see anything worthwhile, let me know. Oh! And if you can't get into a cabinet, let me know. I'll get Whirliped to apply a little bit of acid into the mechanism, break any lock ya' see."

I complied, heading over to and opening the cabinet. Unfortunately, it seemed that paperwork is my bane, as per usual. All I had in the first cabinet were an array of requisition requests, for materials that were either generic supplies or things that I didn't understand the use of. Bit disheartening to realize the extent of my lack of education, if I'm honest.

Like, sure, I understood what Sulfur Hexafluoride is conceptually, but I have no idea what the point of having it in regards to "vascular sonography" would have to do with anything going on around here. What, are they mapping blood veins by playing Mozart through a Sulfur-based molecule? Hardly much need for a secret laboratory in that case.

The only consistency I could find is the commonality of the "Dream Research Convention" header at the top of the papers, a dating of forty or so years prior to the current year, and the requisitions being sent to the "Unova Department of Combat Research." Which was, uhh, ominous.

"Hey, Rox? You notice how all of these are sent to the Department of Combat Research?"

Looking up from her own piles of forms, she shook her head at me, and said, "Nah, all mine are research procedures and protocol and all that. Stuff to do with Musharna and Munna, some dark-types, all that. What are you looking at?"

"Requisitions, this place seems to be set up and run by some combat researchers. Government-funded, all that, and dated back forty or so years."

Roxie's face looked a little disturbed, before grabbing a document she had placed on the floor a bit ago. "That explains this, I suppose," she grimaced, "A report on the efficacy of dream mist in large-scale disruptions."

Oh, yep, we were in deep.

"The report seems to be sayin' it isn't all that good in combat, thankfully. Or, uhh, "not presently viable" as the guy writing this says. Too short of an effect, minimal damage incurred, all that," she continued. "Oh, and they got all this dream mist stuff from the Munna and Musharna, I figured that much out."

"So, basically, they were doing wartime research here."

"Seems like it, but I doubt they remember this place anymore, at least based on appearance. Let's look a little bit more, though."

This next search was a little longer. I had moved through a couple of cabinets without finding anything worthwhile, while Roxie stumbled upon a couple of new things. The most memorable was an investigation into the effects of prolonged dream mist on Pokémon inducing strange biological changes modifying some aspects of the Pokémon to be worse and others to be more effective, behavioral changes, or other strange things such as electric types becoming perfectly efficient in their absorption of electric attacks. Reminded me of natures and ability changes, but I couldn't be sure.

On the positive side, I was the one who found a particularly critical bit of information.

"Hey, Rox, check this out. "As of July 24th, all activity within the Striaton Oil and Chemical Refinery-based facility shall be suspended and relocated to the Entralink research facility. Not sure why they moved out, though."

"Entralink?" Her nose scrunched up, "Never heard of it. Does it say where that facility is?"

"Nope."

I, of course, knew that Entralink was the weird online thing back in Black and White, found in the very center of Unova. Can't just spout out that sort of thing, especially if it's protected government secrets.

"Odd. Well, we've only got a couple of cabinets to go, finish it off real quick, and we'll head out."

And, boy, was that a fulfilling experience. We found a whole lot of nothing in our last ten or so minutes of skimming. A bit disappointed, we scoured the rest of the table's random papers. Again, nothing worthwhile. So, with plenty to think about, we decided to leave.

Of course, there was an unnoticed notice board by the entrance we only noticed on our way out. And, would you know it, there was a note left on it.

"'Dave and Johannes, you're in charge of closing up. Since you'll be leaving on your own, and I know how you two get lost, I've written the instructions to get to Entralink here for you.' Well, isn't that convenient?"

On the note was a series of roads that I couldn't decipher, but it seemed to make sense to Roxie based on her next question, "This Entralink is in the middle of the Unova Forest?"

"Is that where it leads? Well, that's interesting."

Save that for the future, I think.

Regardless, I do believe that was enough exploring for the day. Kyou had dozed off on one of the empty tables, what a guy, and I gave him a quick yell to wake him up.

There were a few Pokémon to bash on our way out, but nothing that really mattered. Now that she was out of the facility and didn't have to think about the moral ramifications, Roxie was practically shaking with excitement.

"I can't believe we found a hidden military facility! That may have been the coolest thing I've done in ages!" and other such lines kept coming from her. I admit, the energy was contagious. I couldn't keep myself from smiling and laughing alongside her, because, yes, that was a rather amazing thing to have discovered.

We found a nice little campsite to make ourselves home right outside Striaton, and released all our Pokémon. Leinas was quick to comfort and heal me, Entoma and Cocytus were a bit worried about my scratched face, and Gargantua watched Kyouhukou play charades involving various fights. Roxie and I got to discussing the ramifications of what we found, and then we went right off to bed.

All in all, a good day, I think.