Authors Note: So... I'm in a bit of a writing/creative pickle with this chapter onward. You see, I had originally made the Alaria region as just a region for the story to take place with various Pokemon from all regions. As I started to write this chapter though, I actually started to develop the region a bit and add a few new Pokemon and regional variants. As such, I took a long look at what I wrote at this story and decided that I'm going to be retconning some things as they come up, much to my chagrin. The first one that is going to be obvious later on is that Echo's Ralts is going to be a Regional Variant. That's really all I wanted to say, enjoy the chapter.
Chapter 9: IPP Recruits & Cases
At the IPP Headquarters, Hibiki just got done telling Looker and Anabel about their encounter with Team Noise in the forest, the drone they managed to hit, and with Beat. "Ok wow, sounds like you two made a good call wanting to come here anyway." Looker said, a bit surprised by the amount of activity around the two girls.
"Should we be worried about either of the three parties?" Hibiki asked curiously. Looker thought about that for a moment as he thought about the three encounters
"Of the three parties you mentioned… I think we should keep an eye on this Beat character and whoever this drone belongs to. Team Noise shouldn't be that much of an issue." Looker said.
"Any reason in particular? They have been getting more bold these past few months." Echo responded.
"While that is true, even we at the IPP don't think they'll get up to that kind of scummy stuff. Still, we are already keeping an eye on them, so we will let you know if anything does change in this regard." Anabel explained. Echo simply nodded as she remembered the broken drone in her bag and brought it out.
"Right, now I remember you telling me about this over the phone. Based on what you just told us, there does seem to be a chance that this belongs to someone with interest in the gym battle, but I'll have our researchers see what they can find." Looker said.
"The one that interests us right now is this Beat, as he seems to know a lot more than we do. You said you got a box from him, correct?" Looker questioned. Hibiki simply nodded and got out the small box that was given to her.
"We did at least take a peak in there before we headed here, but it's just some random stuff that from what I can tell does have some meaning. He also said something along the lines that the IPP and him share the same enemy." Hibiki replied. Looker took the box and opened it up before taking out the contents and laying them on the table.
"I haven't done a look on those disks yet because I'm afraid that they might have malicious materials on them." Echo commented.
"That is a good thing and I agree with what you said Hibiki, this is a weird set of items that has some meaning." Looker said as he considered something. Anabel picked up the goggle lenses and looked them over, looking for any indication as to where they came from.
"I think these are modified AR lenses." Anabel said.
"How can you tell they're modified?" Echo questioned.
"Look, I've messed around with AR tech a lot during my time in the region, but these do seem a bit different just by the weight alone." Anabel said, a bit of excitement in her voice as she put them back.
"We'll have to look at it later, what I'm curious about is what this book is." Looker said. The book itself was fairly thick, but was locked with an electronic lock that had a screen on it with a microphone next to it. Seeing this, Looker immediately looked around the book and found a message on the back. " 'Let the virtual world be your guide, let the cave of the seers tell you the Key.' Why go to such lengths to protect a book?" Looker said aloud.
"He obviously did his homework, from what I was able to look at, this book won't open without the passcode. While we could just pry it off, I'm curious to figure out what the passcode is." Echo commented.
"I also get the feeling that there might be a fail safe in case of a forced opening. Either way, we'll find the passcode." Looker said. At this point, Hibiki picked up the gloves and noticed that there were a few additional holes for what looked like wires. Before she could bring it up, a beep was heard from Looker's phone. "Ah shit, I forgot I have a meeting in about 30 minutes." Looker said with a groan.
"Want me to finish things here?" Anabel asked.
"I would appreciate it and also to get these two fully initiated." Looker said as he stood up.
"It was a pleasure to meet you Mr. Looker." Hibiki said in a nice voice.
"Just Looker will be fine. It was a pleasure meeting you two as well and I hope that you will do good things in the IPP." Looker responded as he left the office. After he left, Anabel put the lenses back on the desk as Anabel smiled.
"As for what to do with the contents of the box, I would say leave the disks with us for analysis. More than likely, you'll be needing those other things later." Anabel told the two.
"You sure about that?" Hibiki asked cautiously.
"Well, these will be in the IPP's hands no matter the scenario, but I feel more comfortable with them being in your possession." Anabel said.
"That's true." Hibiki said.
"Now then, let's get you two officially inducted into the IPP. Not a full official introduction, but enough to get you settled in." Anabe said. The two simply nodded as Melody smiled and spoke real quick into the PLT.
"Meloetta: So, what is going to be done about ths?"
"Well… I see no reason to not give this to you, if only to help work out the kinks." Anabel said. Echo simply went star eyed at the thought of having a prototype while Hibiki just awkwardly nodded in agreement. "Ok, now then come along, this is a bit of a long process and I want to get it done as soon as possible." Anabel said as she sighed. The two new recruits nodded as Melody was returned to her ball.
After about an hour and a half of answering questions and deciding on what paths they wanted to take, the two sisters were just sitting down in Anabel's office, a bit mentaly exhausted from their initiation. "Ok, that is definitely one of the more boring things that I have sat through." Hibiki commented to her sister.
"Agreed." Echo said simply. After a few more minutes of waiting, Anabel walked in with two folders.
"Well that was a long process, thank you two for going through with it." Anabel told the two as she sat down. She then gave a folder to each of the two twins, who both simply smiled as they looked at their new IPP information. "Now, a few rules to go over about what you all can do. With your current status, you can talk to local authorities and get their help for various things. You are also considered authority and can help out with anything in their area. Just don't go asking for ridiculous things about them." Anabel explained.
"So basically we can ask the local police for help, but don't be a dick about it." Echo repeated.
"Yep, another thing for you to know is that we can only go so far, especially with you two as recruits. If you want my advice, just stay away from the big corporations." Anabel told them, pinching her temple a little.
"Anything else aside from not getting into big trouble?" Hibiki questioned. Anabel thought for a moment before she remembered something and reached into her suit.
"Not really, but I did just remember something that I wanted to give you specifically." Anabel responded as she got out another folder. She slid it to Hbiki, who curiously opened it and immediately held her breath as she read her grandmother's case file. "I overheard that you were going to look into this case and I can understand why. As luck would have it, we actually reopened the case recently to look through some of the evidence again because of something that came up." Anabel said with a smile.
"From what I recall, our grandmother's death was ruled a suicied, but the IPP at the time felt something was off so they kept looking." Echo began to say, a hit of sadness in her voice.
"I suppose it's a good idea to start from the beginning as I was actually one of the people called on to help with this case close to when it started." Anabel said. This made both of the twins perk up a bit and look at Anabel, Hibiki looking with a look of surprise and glee. "To keep it brief so we aren't here all day, I was called in 10 years ago to help look over this case because there were some oditis that surrounded it. Over the next few months, we found a few pieces of evidence that pointed to something as well as a couple of witnesses, but nothing definitive to nail down another cause of death. We eventually had to close it officially because of how much was going into it, but I always kept coming back and looking into it unofficially." Anabel summarized.
"So why did you decide to reopen?" Hibiki questioned. At that point, Anabel looked through the files and got out a picture that seemed to show Symphia, or at least someone who looked like her, in front of a mural on the side of a mountain as well as a letter that seems to be written in gibberish.
"About five days ago, this was sent to us by an anonymous person via a Pidgeot. Now we don't know who the Pidgeot belonged to, it left before we could verify it, but it left us these two items." Anabel explained.
"How recent are these?" Hibiki asked, a hint of hope in her voice.
"The letter seems to be at least written before Symphia died, but the picture seems to at least be from our last few months and from our research doesn't seem to have been taken in Western Alaria." Anabel responded.
"... This is very interesting and all, but what about the possibility that this is just someone who looks like our grandmother?" Echo said, wanting to be at least a little reasonable.
"See that's the nice part about this picture, the person is actually not our main point of interest." Anabel said as she flipped the picture over. On the back, there was some writing that looked very familiar to Hibiki and Echo.
"Never give up hope on the impossible, I know you haven't Hibi and Reverb. -Symphia"
"That's her hand writing." Hibiki said, her voice cracking a bit.
"Yeah it is, and those are our nicknames that she used." Echo said, her previous sense of reason now gone.
"Even if we assume that someone somehow got your nicknames and learned how to write in your grandmother's handwriting, they would need to get someone who looks like her for the picture. Granted, this is a very real possibility, but it was enough for me to petition to reopen the case." Anabel explained.
"So… are you giving this case to us?" Echo questioned.
"I am and the only reason that I'm giving this to you is because I just have this feeling that you two will make a lot more progress on this than we ever could." Anabel said.
"You sure about that Miss Anabel? It just seems like it's a weird thing to do, giving this case and expecting us to find what people from the IPP couldn't, no offense of course." Echo remarked.
"None taken and trust me when I say that both Looker and I have met some amazing trainers in our past. Giving this to you is honestly child's play compared to what they've done." Anabel responded, a small smile coming on her face as she remembered a few trainers in particular. Echo looked at Hibiki, a bit confused at Anabel's statement, and her sis simply responded with a confused shrug.
"Ok… so aside from the case file, is there anything else you need to let us know about?" Echo sighed awkwardly. Anabel tilted her head a bit as she thought about that before smiling.
"Just that someone is going to be waiting for you outside in a little bit. I won't say who it is, but you'll know them when you see them." Anabel said as she stood up. Hibiki and Echo took that as their cue to get ready to leave when Hibiki remembered something.
"Before I forget, what is the name of that organization you mentioned back at Cherry's lab?" Hibiki asked.
"Ah right, thought I was forgetting something. Truth be told, we don't know much aside from the fact that they're in Alaria and seem to be working on something due to large amounts of various resources being transferred all over the region." Anabel explained. Hibiki simply nodded as Anabel extended her hand. "Anyway, it's been nice talking with both of you. Now go do the IPP proud." Anabel said as she shook their hands. Hibiki and Echo returned the hand shake before they turned around and left the office.
"We'll update you if we find anything about the case." Hibiki said as they left. Anabel simply nodded and after they left, sighed and slumped back in her chair.
"This is definitely not what I expected to be doing today, but I can't say that I'm displeased about it." Anabel said as she got back to work herself.
As the two exited the IPP building, Hibiki let out a big sigh of nervousness, a bit glad that it was all over. "Well, I can certainly say that this journey is already more exciting than I thought it would be." Hibiki said.
"Yep… so what do we do now?" Echo asked
"Well, I suppose we could rethink our route through the gyms." Echo suggested.
"That's probably for the best, but first, I need to sit down and just let everything that happened settle in." Hibiki said, a bit of exhaustion in her voice. Echo simply nodded and got her two Pokémon out to let them stretch, Hibiki doing the same with Venemy and Melody, who was already invisible. As they sat down, Hibiki looked over at Ralts and noted that he seemed a bit different from what she remembered. His 'hair' has a yellow outline on it, it's crystal had a yellow center surrounded by a red outline, and his little dress had the electric patches on it with yellow tips at his hands. "Huh… how did I not notice that your Ralts was an Alarian variant?" Hibiki commented.
"You know… I don't know either. Still happy with my choice." Echo said as she patted Ralts' head. Ralts immediately smiled at that gesture and she immediately snuggled closer to Echo.
"So, I was actually going to suggest something about the riddle on the back of the book." HIbiki said as she got the book out and looked at the riddle on the back.
"You think you might know something.?" Echo questioned.
"Just a guess from a few things I've heard. Now I should preface that all of this is based on the assumption that all of this stuff is related to the goings on in Alaria." Hibiki began to explain.
"That makes sense to assume. After all, if it's outside of Alaria, then we just give this stuff to the IPP and I don't think Beat wanted that." Melody commented.
"So the riddle is 'Let the virtual world be your guide, let the cave of the seers tell you the Key.' For me, there's one place that fits that description for me, at least the second part. North of Fairy Tale Grove, I've heard talk about a cave to the north called the Cave of Fortune. Supposedly, there is a Solrock and Lunatone that often like to give fortunes to people that are willing to make the trek." Hibiki explained.
"But the issue you're probably thinking of is the first part right?" Echo asked.
"Correct, because I can't figure out what the first part of this means. Like it's obviously something to do with technology, probably something in AR, but for the life of me I can't think of where that part might be located." Hibiki confirmed. Echo let the thought sit in her mind for a moment before they heard someone approaching and looked up to see Professor Cherry.
"Hey there you two." Cherry greeted.
"Professor, what are you doing here?" Echo asked.
"Well, Anabel did say that someone was going to be waiting for you." Cherry said with a smile.
"Huh, no offense, but I definitely expected someone else or another IPP agent." Hibiki commented, shyly looking away. Cherry simply smiled as she pulled out a holobadge that read 'Professor Cherry: Alarian IPP Science Division'. "...Oh." Hibiki squeaked out of embarrassment.
"I take no offense of course and it's fine that you didn't know, I tend to keep my distance from the IPP. As for why me, I would like to tell you both about a request that I would like for you to help me with." Cherry told the two. Echo and Hibiki looked at each other before they simply shrugged, which Cherry took as a go ahead signal. "I would like to journey with you two to see if I can find a Pokemon I've been looking for for the past 8 years." Cherry told the two.
"That's fine with us, but what is this Pokemon you're looking for if you don't mind us asking." Echo responded.
"Well… I would prefer a more private environment as this is kind of a sensitive topic." Cherry said as she looked around. The two simply nodded as they stood up with their Pokemon and followed Cherry to a hotel. After going up to her room, she quickly locked the door and got out a notebook that she had before turning to a page she had marked. "Apologies for this, but this is very sensitive stuff." Cherry said as she showed the page to the two of them. On the page in question, was a rough drawing of a large bird with harp-like wings in what appeared to be a stormy sky.
"What is this, I've never seen something like this before? I'm also surprised at your drawing skills, no offense of course." Hibiki said as she took the notebook.
"None taken again, but I did kind of have to resort to drawing because of what happened that day." Cherry explained. Hibiki tilted her head, not remembering what Cherry was talking about, but Echo clearly remembered as her face turned to one of shock.
"You drew this on the first Blackout Event right?" Echo questioned. Cherry simply nodded as Hibiki snapped her fingers recalling the event herself.
"So if you don't mind me asking as I was never really interested in humans at the time, what is a Blackout Event?" Melody asked.
"A Blackout Event is only something that's begun happening recently. It basically is the region wide shut down of electronics for about a period of time." Echo explained to Melody.
"Correct, and I think that this Pokemon is behind it." Cherry said as she tapped the picture.
"What makes you think that?" Hibiki asked.
"8 years ago, almost immediately after the first event stopped, I happened to see this Pokemon in the sky. Now since I was busy helping make sure everything was online at the time, the best I could do was take a good look at it. From what I was able to tell, it seemed to be manipulating the EM fields of the region." Cherry began to explain.
"That would explain why all our tech seems to turn off. Although it's fairly equipped to handle the EM waves normally, they do tend to mess up whenever the EMwaves fluctuate, especially during Blackout Events." Echo commented.
"Anyway, I should stress that this is a theory that I'm working on, but I've either seen or caught glimpses of this Pokemon during most Blackout events. I drew this rough sketch after making sure it wasn't just my imagination and I've been trying to find it ever since." Cherry finished.
"Interesting, well this seems like it should be a simple enough task in theory. One thing that I'm seeing is that you wrote down is that it's nest seems to be in Eastern Alaria." Hibiki noted as she was reading.
"From what I can gather, it seems to always head back towards that direction, so it's the best guess I got. Before you ask why I haven't made a tracker to for sure know it's location, it usually appears high in the sky and circles the region." Cherry said. There was a moment of silence as no one knew what to talk about when Hibiki thought about something and proceeded to get out the box.
"Professor, since you're going to accompany us, I would actually like your opinion on these items." Hibiki requested as she opened it. Cherry, out of curiosity, picked up the gloves and lenses to look at them before she gasped.
"Well… I can tell you that I do recognise both, but why do you have these?" Cherry inquired.
"They were given to me by someone named Beat, we have no idea if he's a good guy though." Echo explained. Cherry stayed silent for a moment before she let out a long sigh. "Judging by that, I take it you know him?" Echo questioned.
"I most certainly do, and as for his allegiance, I can safely say that he mostly keeps to himself and that's about it." Cherry said.
"We can talk about him later and go more in depth, but for now, what exactly are these things?" Hibiki told Cherry.
"The lenses are known as Multi-spectrum lenses. You know all those cool visors and stuff in movies and video games? These are basically AR versions of those with a few different visors built in, though I'm not sure which settings are on it." Cherry explained.
"That's cool, what about the gloves?" Hibiki said, noting a bit of sparkles in Echo's Eyes. Cherry, taking a closer look at the gloves, let out a gasp of surprise.
"Well I'll be damned, he did manage to get these things after all." Cherry said to herself. Hibiki and Echo looked at each other as Cherry snapped out of her surprised trance. "Sorry about that, but it is very good that you have these. These two are what Beat has coined, Snag Gloves. These are for a very special purpose, but I'm a bit concerned as to why he gave them to you Hibiki." Cherry explained.
"What are they for?" Hibiki questioned.
"Well… that's a little bit awkward to explain." Cherry said. Hibiki felt a little suspicious and was about to ask her something when Echo spoke up
"We'll worry about it when we can get those to function. After all, they look like they need to be connected to something to work properly." Echo said.
"Y-Yeah, they need to be connected to something in order to work. I'll tell you what they do then." Cherry said, a bit of awkwardness in her voice. Hibiki simply sighed as she pushed that thought to the back of her mind.
"Ok, so since that is probably everything covered, what should we do now?" Hibiki asked.
"If you two don't mind, I would like to take some time to myself and make sure everything is settled back at the lab." Cherry said as she brought out a phone.
"That sounds good, who do you have watching the lab?" Hibiki asked.
"An assistant who happens to love pokemon, so it's in good hands." Cherry said.
"Nice, well we'll see you later then, we have some things to handle in town." Echo said. Cherry simply nodded as the two recalled their pokemon and left Cherry's room. As soon as they left, Cherry quickly got out her phone and dialed a number. After a few rings, a familiar voice to her picked up.
"Ah, Professor Cherry. For what reason do I owe the call?" Beat questioned in an innocent voice.
"Well, I just found out what you gave to Hibiki." Cherry said, a bit of anger in her voice.
"I was wondering when you were going to find out." Beat responded.
"You knew I would look at them!?" Cherry vocalized.
"Of course, it is you after all." Beat said in a joyful tone. Cherry simply sighed as she pinched her nose out of annoyance.
"Ok, so let me just cut to the chase, why did you give them the Snag Gloves? More importantly, where did you get them, cause I know for a fact that you don't have the tech to make them." Chery said.
"That is the award winning question, isn't it? In any case, I think you'll very quickly find that it's from our mutual friend and they are in the region." Beat said, getting a bit serious towards the end of his sentence. Cherry nodded in regret as she completely understood what Beat was saying.
"I just don't want to get those kids involved. Sure they might be able to stop them, but if what you told me is true, I wouldn't forgive myself if anything happened to them." Cherry said, a bit of desperation in her voice.
"I know… trust me, I didn't want to get them involved either. After thinking about it however, I think they can do it." Beat told Cherry.
"I hope you're right." Cherry said with a sigh.
"Anyway, I was actually going to send you some new info I picked up. It's not much to go off of, but seeing as you're traveling with those two, I'm going to guess it'll come in handy." Beat said. Cherry was about to ask, but quickly remembered something Beat had given her in the past.
"Always a crafty one aren't you? I'll use the info well." Cherry said as she put a hand on her shoulder.
"That's all I can ask for. Let me know if anything else happens and keep in touch. Talk to you later." Beat said before he hung up. Cherry took a moment of silence before she smiled and set her phone down to look over the information that she was given.