Happy 2024 to all reading this. Just wanted to say if you've read the story up to this point since the beginning, thank you for your support, it means a lot. Now then, a quick note of order that I wanted to bring up. If these next few chapters seem a bit quicker and wordier than usual, blame me actually getting my head in a zone. That's it, enjoy the chapter.
Chapter 40: Tranquil Planning
Five minutes had passed since Echo had arrived at the hotel room after encountering Solion and she was just finishing up a conversation with Looker. "Alright Echo, thank you for letting us know about that encounter. We'll get our best scouts to check out the area to see if it's true and play it as safe as possible. Get here as soon as you can so we can talk strategy." Looker told Echo in an alert voice.
"Got it, I'll let the others know." Echo said before she hung her Rotom Phone. Echo sighed as she pinched the bridge of her nose and put her phone away before looking outside the window to check if the others were on the way. When she did, she jumped a bit as the door opened and Hibiki walked into the room.
"Hey sis, sorry if we were interrupting something." Hibiki said as Cherry and Sigma walked in.
"Oh don't worry about it, I just got off the phone with Looker." Echo responded. Hibiki immediately sighed as Cherry perked up and Sigma immediately began to grab his things after hearing that.
"Ok, what happened? Was it Solion?" Cherry questioned.
"Yep, spot on with that guess that he might follow us Sigma." Echo said as she walked to her computer.
"Figured that might be his plan, something was off with the way he just left without even acknowledging me." Sigma commented.
"Well, what did you two talk about?" Hibiki asked. In response, Echo took out the card that she got from Solion and handed it to Hibiki, who proceeded to read it aloud.
"Dear Eversong Group,
We are done playing around and want to make a deal. As of you receiving this note, we have secretly taken the Tranquil Resort hostage by planting bombs along the base of the platform. Needless to say, we are more than happy to send this resort and the people staying on it to the bottom of the lake unless you fulfill a deal we propose. Come to the top of the main resort skyscraper where we make a trade: the girl with the Meloetta for the safety of the people in the resort. Any attempt to save the people before the trade or attempt at trickery will be met with immediate destination. That being said, we are feeling generous and won't start the detonation sequence til midnight today to give you time to plan, not that any of it will matter anyway. See you soon.
-S"
As Hibiki finished reading that, she quickly tossed the card on the bed before rushing to pack her stuff as Cherry read the card herself. "Oh, they mean business this time. Any chance that this is a bluff?" Cherry questioned.
"I would rather not take chances with something like this." Echo told Cherry.
"Agreed there sis, we can come up with something to save them." Hibiki responded. Cherry said nothing, simply nodding agreement before going to pack up her stuff. After a few minutes of making sure that they had everything packed up, the group set out once again. "So, what's the current plan?" Hibiki asked as they all began to head towards the exit of the dome.
"Looker is currently sending agents to check where the bombs might be, taking caution with the warning of the note." Echo explained.
"And he told us to get back there as fast as we can?" Sigma questioned. Echo simply nodded in agreement as they reached the exit of the dome and waited for it to open.
"How are we getting back quickly though?" Hibiki asked as the door opened with a loud hiss. Echo paused as she was about to step outside and gave Hibiki a neutral look that asked if she was joking with her. "...Oh I'm dumb. Well, what Pokemon are you going to use then?" Hibiki responded.
"That is the issue now. I don't exactly have a flying type Pokemon on me and I know Skuld can really only care about you." Echo said, stepping into the warm outside air..
"Altaria can carry one other person besides me, so I can help if needed, but that is dependent on if Sigma has a flying Pokemon on hand." Cherry chimed in.
"Ah, about that…" Sigma began to say. He was interrupted by the group stopping as they saw Jovi with a Metagross waiting for them on the road.
"Need a lift?" Jovi questioned.
"Huh, talk about stuff and it happens." Sigma said to himself. Echo nodded as Hibiki and Cherry called out their respective Pokemon, quickly explaining the need for the flight.
"Where are your other Pokemon?" Echo asked in a somewhat disappointed tone.
"Gave them to Professor Michael back at the IPP headquarters. He said he needed them to help construct his Purification Machine and offered to purify them for me." Sigma explained. Echo nodded as she hopped on Jovi's Metagross while Sigma walked over to Cherry's Altaria and carefully took a seat.
"As soon as I heard about the situation, I came as fast as I could." Jovi told Echo.
"Were you listening in on stuff you shouldn't?" Echo questioned.
"Nope, Looked actually came to me and my brother to explain the situation. I figured I would rush over to help with transport just in case." Jovi responded.
"Good call there." Echo said with a small smile. Jovi gave a small, but noticeable smile before the group all took flight and headed directly to Alaria City and the IPP headquarters.
After arriving, the group quickly headed to the situation room, a large rectangular room with several computers manned by agents and screens on the walls as well as a round table in the center of the room with chairs around it, where Looker, Anabel, Wind, Allegro, and Michael were all sitting down and waiting for them. "Good timing, we were just about to start reviewing preliminary findings." Looker told the group.
"What would those be?" Echo asked as she took a seat.
"Just some primary stuff our scouts were able to confirm, mainly that the people there currently seem to be none the wiser that the threat is happening." Anabel explained.
"So a silent take over. Any word on the bombs?" Hibiki said.
"None yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't just an empty threat." Allegro told Hibiki.
"Speaking of that, how should we proceed if this whole thing is looking to not be a bluff?" Cherry questioned.
"That is a good question. Normally, we probably try to negotiate or maybe send a fake to hopefully fool them." Looker said.
"Normally?" Sigma said. In response to that question, Looker and Anabel both immediately looked at Hibiki, who had a knowing smile on her face.
"Am I that obvious?" Hibiki asked nonchalantly.
"Yes and it's also something we've grown used to with your grandmother. All we ask is that you stay safe and actually go in with a plan." Looker told Hibiki.
"Fair enough." Hibiki said. Michael was about to chime in with something when there was a ping from one of the computers.
"Chief Looker, we've got photos from one of the scouts!" one of the agents yelled.
"Put it on screen." Looker ordered. The agent nodded before typing away on his keyboard and putting the photo in question on screen. The photo was of one of the struts supporting the platform that Tranquil Resort was situated on and showed a device strapped to the side with a screen on it.
"Yeah that is not a bluff, I recognize those bombs from my time at Neo Cypher." Wind commented as he examined the photo.
"As much as I would like to disagree with that, I'm more than willing to trust your information. Any word on the possibility of disarming them?" Looker inquired.
"No reports on that yet, will chime in if I get that." the agent said.
"Ok, so with that confirmation, it's for the best that we start making a plan. Any ideas from anyone that isn't just charge in guns blazing?" Anabel asked.
"Well for one, we're going to need to make sure that we don't make a fuss and cause people to panic." Michael suggested.
"Probably for the best, we don't accidentally want to cause a stampede out of panic." Hibiki responded.
"Yeah, additionally, as I assume we aren't just going to give Hibiki and Melody over to Neo Cypher, we may want to look into making a double for the both of them." Cherry said.
"As much of a good idea that is, something tells me Brain, sorry Solion, saw through my play with my Hatteren. He might be fooled by a practical disguise, but I doubt the same trick will get him twice." Sigma commented.
"Still, it's something we have to look into. The problem will be coming up with a dummy Meloetta to use. I don't know if this is a thing with Neo Cypher, but I remember from the tech of Cypher that we managed to recover, we found built in helmet scanners that helped determine what actually is a Pokemon and what isn't." Michael added.
"Yeah that tech is still there, which does present a problem." Sigma said.
"I might have an idea that might work, but I would need to speak with Melody to see if it's possible. If need be, I am more than willing to risk my neck to get Solion and see what he has to say." Hibiki offered. The other all nodded and were about to continue before Wind coughed and got their attention
"There is one thing we will need to address before going any further with planning, the Snag Machines."Wind said.
"True enough, any plan we make is kind of a moot point if all our Pokemon just get taken away." Cherry said, putting a hand to her chin. The room went silent as they all thought of something to do when Echo snapped her fingers as she came up with the idea
"Professor Michael, is there any way you could figure out a way you could potentially develop a jamming mechanism to stop Snag Balls from activating by reverse engineering the tech from Wind's and Sigma's suits?" Echo questioned. Michael paused as he put a hand on his chin and pondered the idea.
"That… might work out, though I am going to have to rush it. It will definitely be half baked, but if it ends up working, there would be nothing to worry about. That being said, I would have to start right away." Michael commented as he got up to leave.
"Let me help you, you'll need more hands if we're hoping to get this to work." Jovi said as she went to follow Michael.
"Wind, could I request your help? You've used their tech before and any help that you could provide would be of great use." Michael questioned. Wind nodded as he got up to leave, but not before putting a hand on the shoulder of Sigma, who was attempting to stand up.
"Stay, you're probably going to be better at helping create plans." Wind told Sigma.
"I want to help with this though." Sigma said.
"Sigma, trust me when I say you're more of a help here. You've been with Neo Cypher for so long that your experience will help more with the planning." Wind responded. Sigma was going to say something else, but sighed as he knew that he was probably outvoted and sat back down. "Trust me, you've done enough. Plus I have my share of the blame to uphold." Wind commented.
"I'll hold you to that." Sigma said. Wind gave him a reassuring pat before he walked out of the situation room with Michael and Sigma.
"Seems like you two became fast friends." Echo said with a small smile.
"Hey, similar situations do lead to that." Sigma commented.
"Wind is right though, your experience in Neo Cypher might be just the thing we need to see if we can figure out what they're up to with this stunt." Looker said. Sigma paused as he looked around before seeing Echo get up and walk over to him before taking a deep breath and kissing him on the cheek. Sigma felt his face heat up immediately as he sat straight up and turned to see Echo quickly sitting down and hiding her face.
"Dummy…" Echo said quietly.
"Well looks like you've got a girlfriend looking out for you at least." Hibiki told Sigma in a somewhat comforting tone. Echo put her head down on the table in response as Sigma let that sink in and nodded to himself.
"All right, let's keep talking and planning." Sigma said, more sureness in his voice. Everyone else nodded and began to talk strategy as ideas were tossed around and the situation developed. Eventually, once everyone said their piece, Echo paused as she thought about something that had been on her mind the whole meeting before Looker coughed and caught her attention.
"Thinking about it now, I supposed I should have asked you this specific question before we fully got into this conversation, but we're here now. How do you know we can trust what Solion said?" Looker questioned.
"...You might laugh and abscond me for this, but it's something simple for me. Solion implied that he was at the Pokemon League the day of the Surge and told me that he wasn't the one that killed our grandmother." Echo explained. There was a heavy silence in the room as everyone at the table was dead silent at the information that Echo gave.
"You're positive?" Hibiki asked, a hint of anxiousness in her voice.
"Very. He could have easily been lying to me, but something in my gut tells me that he's telling the truth. What do you two think?" Echo responded.
"Well, as much as we would want to dismiss that as just random bullshit, there is some ground to that." Looker said.
"During our investigation, we came across a destroyed security camera. Naturally, we assumed they had been destroyed because of the EMP wave, but that information would explain some of the oddities we came across when cleaning up." Anabel mentioned.
"I take it that they looked like they were destroyed by an external device?" Cherry asked.
"Brain did love to go on and on about his knack for making niche but very useful devices." Sigma added.
"Yeah that sounds like Solion all right." Anabel sighed. Cherry paused as she thought about something before letting an idea form in her head and looking at the two veteran agents.
"Did you keep the cameras that you collected?" Cherry questioned.
"Yes we did, I was against it at first, but Anabel did make a good point that if we found more evidence later, they would be useful." Looker answered.
"Hey, I did end up being right about that. I just ended up taking like 10 years longer than we anticipated." Anabel said.
"I'll see what I can do to recover footage from the cameras if we're done here." Cherry commented as she got up.
"Yes we are, now each of you go take care of what preparations you need to. Sigma, I would like to request you to stay here with me til you leave so we can talk more about Neo Cypher." Looker said. Everyone nodded as Cherry, Hibiki, Echo, and Anabel all left the room to go prepare, leaving Looker and Sigma alone at the table.
"... Man she really did kiss me." Sigma said quietly, rubbing his cheek.
"Hey, at least that shows that you got someone to look out for you." Looker told Sigma in an encouraging tone.
"Yeah… Now, what do you want to talk about?" Sigma questioned, putting his serious face on. Looker nodded, immediately got out a notebook and pencil before beginning to ask Sigma various questions about his time at Neo Cypher.
IPP Planning Rooms…
In one of the planning rooms sat Hibiki, Echo, and Melody as they went over potential plans for their side of the infiltration while looking at a map of the central complex. "So they're more than likely going to be waiting for us in the main building, what options for escape do we have?" Hibiki wondered as she pulled out the blueprint for the main building.
"Well, there are all the obvious ones: Fire Exit, Windows, Ground Floor. Depending on where we meet, we have a lot of stuff to pick from, so we'll have to play it by ear." Echo responded as she thought about logical answers.
"Even jumping off the roof into the lake?" Hibiki asked. Echo and Melody simply looked at Hibiki with an unamused look on their faces. "Hey, it's an emergency escape, it'll work if we need it too." Hibiki said with a smile.
"I swear Hibiki, you think of the craziest things and they'll somehow work." Melody told Hibiki with a sigh.
"If we're on the roof and need to make an emergency escape, I'll consider it." Echo said begrudgingly. The room was silent for a moment as they kept looking over the plans before Hibiki thought of something.
"Think this is a trap?" Hibiki asked.
"Probably, but what other choice do we have? Let the resort blow up and have several people die?" Echo said.
"...Fair enough." Hibiki sighed. Melody quickly floated over and patted Hibiki on the back as she thought about something.
"I might have a plan, but I know that you aren't going to like what I'm about to suggest." Melody told Hibiki.
"No, we aren't just going to give you over." Hibiki responded in a harsh tone.
"Agreed, I know the idea of just handing you over is the easy way out and a viable option, but it's not how we want to solve this." Echo added.
"But this is something that I want to do. Trust me, I get that you two want to keep me safe, however I want to do what I can to protect you both, hell everyone we've been traveling with." Melody said. Hibiki was going to say something, but quickly went silent as she thought of an idea she was forming in her mind.
"I can respect that reason." Hibiki commented with a heavy sigh. Hibiki paused as she quickly looked up and shook her head before going to take a seat.
"Everything ok?" Echo asked.
"Yeah, I just need to think about some things." Hibiki answered with a sigh.
"Not used to this much planning complexity or more that you're still trying to work out something?" Echo questioned, as she took a step back from the blueprints.
"More that latter reason, but the former is also not helping." Hibiki said.
"Yeah, I'm not ignoring the fact that a lot of this doesn't seem to add up to me. Why take a whole resort hostage just to get to one Pokemon? Sure they might need Melody, but can't they go about it more discreetly?" Echo commented.
"I mean, we've seen how many Pokemon that they've captured before at Strong's base. Maybe they're looking to stock up pokemon to turn into Shadows in addition to their main objective?" Melody suggested.
"That is a possibility, but if that were the case, I imagine there would be a lot more force involved considering their Snag Machines." Hibiki pondered. Echo paused as she thought about various possibilities before thinking about something.
"Do you think it's possible that their leader, this S, will be there?" Echo asked, a hand on her chin.
"That is a very real possibility and probably would explain the high level threat that they're doing." Hibiki said.
"Wouldn't that be a bit risky for them?" Melody questioned.
"Maybe, but I also see it as a potential for them to maybe blindside us with someone we're not expecting." Echo said.
"If that is the case, at least having an inkling that this is going to happen is nice. Give us an opportunity to plan around it." Hibiki commented. Echo nodded before pausing and turning to look at her sister, who had an anxious look on her face.
"Hibiki… Are you planning on talking to or talking down their leader?" Echo inquired in a suspicious tone.
"God, why am I not good at hiding stuff like this?" Hibiki said in an upset tone as she held her face in her hands.
"Cause I am good at staring you down til you say what's on your mind, plus family is easier to talk with personal stuff." Echo reminded
"True." Hibiki said. She stretches before standing up and looking at the plans again, this time putting a hand on the table. "Do you think I'm doing the right thing? Attempting to resolve things peacefully for a situation that can't be resolved peacefully and trying to get an answer to a selfish question?" Hibiki asked the two present.
"Hibiki…" Echo said in a reassuring tone.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy to see them through. I have just always wondered if I've been doing the right thing." Hibiki clarified. Echo was silent, thinking about how to respond, while Melody floated in front of Hibiki and slapped her across the face.
"Sorry for being rather abrupt with that, but are you listening to yourself? It's not that I don't get where you're coming from, but why are you acting like this?" Melody questioned in a loud voice. Hibiki rubbed her cheek in stunned silence for a moment as she processed that before giving a small smile.
"Truth be told, I don't know why I'm saying this now. Probably just nerves getting to me, but I just have this weird feeling." Hibiki responded with a sigh.
"A feeling that we're getting to the end of this conflict?" Echo asked.
"Yeah, that just got me thinking about moral questions." Hibiki said.
"Well if I had to answer those questions, with a bit of bias, I think you're absolutely doing the right thing. You're staying true to yourself trying to talk things out while trying to find out something that has been eating away at you for so long. Now granted, it might not be perfect, but why does that matter?" Echo told Hibiki in an encouraging tone.
"...If I had to say something about this, it's that I agree with Echo. In all the time that I've been with you, you've been the nicest human I've had the pleasure of meeting. I don't fully understand human emotions, but I can tell that you have a lot on your plate so… sorry for the unsolicited slap." Melody said with a blush of embarrassment on her face.
"You two… thanks." Hibiki said before opening her arms for a hug. Melody and Echo both quickly went in for the hug, Melody hugging one of HIbiki's arms, the three enjoying a nice, big hug in silence. "That being said… you both might hate me for what I'm about to suggest." Hibiki quickly blurted out. In response, Echo and Melody both slowly started to put more pressure on their hugs and Hibiki started to wave her arms in slight panic.
"And what would that be?" Echo and Melody asked at the same time in a threatening tone.
"A plan that I came up with in case the leader's there, a very risky one at that. One that could either doom us all or quickly bring an end to Neo Cypher." Hibiki squeaked out as she felt the air getting squeezed out of her. Echo and Melody immediately stopped squeezing before looking at Hibiki with intrigue and worry as they took a step back. Hibiki gave a reassuring smile to both of them before taking a deep breath and began to explain her plan.
IPP R&D Department…
Michael and Jovi were currently outside a testing room with Wind inside as they had gotten a crude version of their Snag Blocker working. The Snag Blocker was a fairly bulky device with two switches on the face and an antenna on the front. "So remind me again Professor Michael, how exactly is this going to work?" Wind asked as he put on the Snag Machine that Michael had given him.
"Well because the IPP doesn't exactly have a good way of emulating Snags, this is our next best option. How it's going to work is like this: We're going to set a baseline of you just snagging Pokemon like a normal grunt would. After we get a rough baseline of captures, we will activate the Snag Blocker and see if that changes anything at all." Michael explained.
"You're sure they can't emulate snags?" Wind questioned.
"They probably can, but we are working on a very tight timeline, so corners have to be cut." Michael told Wind.
"Fair enough." Wind said as he got ready.
"Ok, give us a second to set up the parameters and we'll begin." Jovi chimed in as she began typing away at the keyboard. A few seconds later, a timer of five minutes appeared on the far side of the room with a counter next to it at zero and question mark underneath it.
"There will be several Pokemon of varying catch difficulty that will appear that are "registered" to other trainers. You will have one chance to catch each Pokemon, so snag as many as you can before the time runs out and then we'll see if the device does anything at all." Michael explained. Wind simply nodded and got ready as the timer started causing the first pokemon to appear, a hologram Zigzagoon. Wind tousled his Holo Snag Ball and caught the Pokemon easily, causing the counter to tick up one and the next Pokemon to appear. This went on for a bit as Wind went to work attempting to snag various Pokemon from Sunkurn to Garchomp and everything in between.
"What are your thought on this whole situation?" Michael aske Jovi as he took down notes about the experiment.
"Honestly I thought we wouldn't have to deal with this whole thing again, specifically with Cypher. That being said, I always had a feeling in the back of my mind that they might come back in some form." Jovi responded with a sad sigh.
"Truth be told, same here. Ardos was always someone that I had on my mind and just knowing that he was always out there made me uneasy. I did contact the IPP to keep an eye on anyone that could potentially be watching me, but they came back with nothing." Michael said.
"Was it an empty threat?" Jovi asked.
"I doubt it, call it a gut feeling of mine, but something tells me he isn't fully gone." Michael said. Wind kept quiet as he continued to throw balls and attempted to snag Pokemon, eventually just getting into a rhythm before hearing a buzzer as the timer ran out and the final score was displayed at 17.
"Ok, thank you Wind. Now give us a second while we lock in this seed so we can do our test with the same Pokemon." Jovi told Wind.
"Got it." Wind said. As Jovi typed on the computer and fiddled with the settings, Michael noticed Wind looking at the Snag Machine that he was wearing.
"Something wrong with the Snag Machine?" Michael asked, a hint of concern in his voice.
"No, just a bit surprised to be wearing the Snag Machine that took down Cypher originally. I am admittedly a bit shocked that it still works" Wind said, just looking at the device.
"Hey, I do my best to keep that thing maintained. That being said, we are going to have to take into account the potential difference in tech as a factor." Michael commented.
"More as a just in case thing?" Wind questioned. Michael simply nodded in response as Jovi finished messing with the computer and gave a small smile.
"Ok, everything is ready. Let us just activate the Snag Blocker and we'll give you the signal." Jovi told Wind. Wind gave a thumbs up as he stretched his arm and got ready to continue the test. "And you're positive this will at least do something?" Jovi asked Michael as she grabbed the device.
"Hopefully. We made this in like half an hour, so fingers crossed that this doesn't blow up." Michael mentioned. Jovi nervously nodded as she entered the test room with the device, switched it on, and left it on the far end of the room. The device gave a soft hum as the antenna lit up, indicating that it was active.
"Ok, no immediate explosion yet, so we can start. Ready Wind?" Jovi said. Wind gave a thumbs up as Jovi nodded and started up the test again. This time around, as the test went on, the various snags seemed to be doing worse as they failed more often, though they did all activate and capture the Pokemon for at least a second. When the test ended, the counter had ended on 11, six less than the previous test.
"It works!" Wind exclaimed in happiness.
"All right!" Michael said as he nodded with a sigh. Jovi jumped with joy as she went into the room and walked to the device to turn it off, feeling a lot of heat emanating from it as she turned it off.
"Ok, we need to install a better heat sink, noted." Jovi said as she backed up and got out some heat resistant gloves.
"Yeah, we can make something work. Still surprised that you two managed to get this working so fast." Wind said as he took off the Snag machine and exited the test room with Jovi right behind him.
"Hey, a few decades of this being part of your job and you learn a few things." Michael told Wind in a tired yet happy voice.
"God I do wonder how Orre is now with you saying that." Wind commented.
"Better than you would think, we're working on terraforming the region to make it more habitable and bringing in more Pokemon to roam freely." Jovi responded.
"Oh yeah, I had heard that you two were leading an organization to help give more life to Orre and make it a full region. How did that all start anyway?" WInd asked curiously as he grabbed a water bottle that he set aside.
"That is thankfully rather simple. It was about a year or so after I took care of Cipher when Professor Krane suggested the idea to a gathering of local leaders. Me and Jovi had heard about the plan from our mother and while we were shocked about it, we thought the idea was good on paper." Michael began to explain.
"I take it that the locals didn't take too fondly to it?" Wind said, taking a guess.
"It was split down the middle, half were for it and half were against it. Not that surprising when you consider that most of them don't even know many people from outside the region save for me, my brother, and those who come to challenge our various battle facilities.." Jovi continued as she made sure the device was cool enough to touch.
"Yeah that makes sense, natural instinct to preserve what you're familiar with." Wind commented.
"That being said, those that were against it were more resistant than anything." Michael told Wind.
"Like they wanted to see more concrete plans before fully committing?" Wind asked. The two Orreans simply nodded yes in response as Micahel got up to go look at the device.
"The plan that ended up getting the approval of everyone was to see about making grasslands and making some rural areas in new grassland." Michael said.
"Ok, do I even need to tell you how insane that sounds?" Wind said, a bit surprised by the complexity of the plan.
"Yeah we're very aware of how insane it sounds, but it's what we want to do despite that. Thankfully, we have made progress in the past few years and are working on getting the grasslands just right before bringing Pokemon to help with the climate." Jovi told Wind. WInd simply nodded and went silent as he thought of something to say while Michael opened up the device to see some steam coming out of it.
"Yeah, this is going to need a better heat sink, at least the circuitry seems fine." Michael said to himself.
"Hey, if you don't mind me asking, who is this Ardos that you mentioned earlier?" Wind questioned.
"Ah him, just one of the old Cypher admins that would just not let go of their old organization after I took it down. All the others took different paths in life, but he just wouldn't let it go." Michael explained.
"As you heard, we did contact the IPP to see if they could track him down. They did come back with mostly nothing, though there definitely were people being sent to spy on us which told us that he was still out there." Jovi continued as she went to grab some tools.
"That is terrible having to constantly think about that, did those people ever stop getting sent?" Wind questioned.
"They did after a few years and that's the part that has us confused. We had assumed that Ardos had simply either run out of people willing to support him or ran out of money to use. Imagine our surprise when Echo contacted us with the news that Cipher was back under a new name and seemingly new management." Michael said.
"You think something happened to Ardos then?" Wind commented.
"It's possible, that would explain why people stopped getting sent to spy on us, but that also doesn't make sense to us. It makes more sense to us that he was busy building up this new version of Cypher and that he is a secret mastermind working from the shadows." Michael responded.
"Wind, I want you to imagine yourself in his shoes for a moment so you can see where we're coming from." Jovi requested. Wind tilted his head in some confusion but simply nodded and closed his eyes.
"You are someone who has a very strong hatred for the 14 year old who took down the organization that you helped make with your father, who is roughly 70 years old at this point, and twin brother. You swear that you will keep hounding them with people to spy on them and that this organization will rise again. After a few years, you decide to stop for some reason, maybe to confuse your enemies. What would you do to make you stop sending spies?" Jovi explained. Wind let that image sink in his mind as he thought of a response in that mindset.
"I would probably be doing a lot of research and seeking an opportunity to rebuild the organization." Wind responded.
"Exactly, now we don't know for a fact that this is the case, he could be dead for all we know, but to us it's the most likely scenario." Micheal said as he continued to work on the device.
"Yeah, I can see where you two are getting at. Still, something about this whole thing is bothering me, why go after Melody specifically?" Wind pondered.
"That is the weird part to us. Yes, she might be a mythical and may be the key to that whole legend we were told about, but something in my gut is telling me that this is all a red herring." Michael commented. The three were quiet as Wind thought about what Michael had said before Michel had installed something into the Snag Blocker. "Either way, best to be prepared in case my gut is wrong." Michael said as he put the cover back on the device.
"Agreed, we only have a few hours to reasonably get this thing done." Wind told the two.
"Then let's get back to testing." Jovi happily said. Michael and Wind nodded as they all began to head back to their earlier positions to continue their testing.