[h2][u][b][center]Zephyr Base - Sootopolis City[/center][/b][/u][/h2][quote][center]https://open.spotify.com/track/1JJchhlrGzci5NujNElsCm?si=7c7e7432b85041e0[/center]
	Samantha appeared generally disinterested in the Grand Conserve's monologue. She nodded along as if she'd heard it all before.
	"Jonton wasn't involved with Team Zodiac, was he?" she asked genuinely confused. "I had no idea," she added and shook her head slightly.
	Samantha rolled her eyes shook her head, clearly dissatisfied with the response. She thought how Pisces chose well someone that was so inept at investigation and information gathering. He likely purposely avoided the Watchers, and Grand Watcher Clerk, specifically, for this very reason.
	Grand Conserve Kline looked at Tristan for a moment after he asked about her second meeting with Pisces. Her brows twisted and she looked up and around in confusion. She was searching for a memory she had no recollection of. Samantha and her Espeon visibly tensed as they realized the Grand Conserve was not trying to hind anything.
	The Grand Conserve's mind went back to show the image of her in her office speaking with Pisces. She tried to find a time when he'd met with her again, but couldn't find it. The image began to wave and distort slightly as she tried to diligently search for any hint of this occurrance.
	"[i]What's that?[/i]" Samantha asked and directed Ether's attention to something beyond the window in the image of the Grand Conserve's memory.
	The image was entirely frozen save the small distortions and waves as she tried to find the additional memory. But the image of the waves through the window appeared to actively crash into the white Sootopolis cliffs. They'd learned that Kline did not keep memories that moved, so this was certainly out-of-place. It was timely of Samantha and her Espeon to notice it so soon before Tristan could decide that Samantha had lied to him about what she saw.
	They moved through the window and onto the cliff's edge. They looked down to see that only a semi-circular portion of the water appeared to move as if it was real. "[i]Better go see what it is,[/i]" Samantha said and jumped down with Ether.
	Being a memory, they levitated down rather quickly. When they reached the water, they passed through it's surface. "[i]What the fuck is this?[/i]" Samantha said on the other side. Her voice held a notably layer of fear.
	On the other side of the surface of the water was an inverted black void. Under their feet was the moving water they had just passed through. Above and around them was absolutely nothing. Samantha was frozen in bewilderment and fear, though she could never admit the latter.
	A rainbow sheen in the shape of a massive bubble around them streaked past. Samantha hardly noticed. Ether, on the other hand, was acutely familiar with the psychic signature.
	"[i]It's another mind shield,[/i]" Ether told Tristan. "[i]It feels much weaker, though,[/i]" he said with an appropriate level of skepticism of how to proceed.
	"I've never seen a mind shield before," Samantha said soon after. She was able to identify it, herself, which was possibly good, but most likely bad.
	"[i]This is Pisces', his Gorebyss' mind shield,[/i]" Ether explained. "[i]It took our whole team to break the one in Jonton's mind and nearly broke Oracle's mind.[/i]"
	"Really? It feels so flimsy," Samantha said with a tone of defiance.
	A spot in the bubble pushed outward and the already-thin film of the shield was pulled taught that it would tear if her Espeon pushed any further.
	"I wasn't lying. This has to be the memory of that meeting I saw her have with him at Lilycove," she tried to justify to Tristan. "We have to see what it is," she added and shook her head. Her tone and face were genuine, serious, lighter than how she normally held herself.
	Before Tristan could propose a better route or method, Samantha's Espeon tore through the bubble. The blackness gave way to darkness - the darkness of a cave. The sound of waves crashing against rocks echoed throughout the space. It was almost too loud to hear anything else. They could smell the salt in the air. The cave's stone was brown, not white or gray. They were no longer in Sootopolis.
	Grand Conserve Kline passed through them from the entrance of the cave. She walked forward and eventually stopped in front of a darkened figure - a slightly younger Pisces. Their voices echoed unnaturally long in the space.
	"I'm glad you could make it, Grand Conserve."
	"Please don't hurt my children."
	"I am a man of my word. I keep my promises. You have nothing to worry about."
	The slight smile on his face looked genuine and almost comforting at first. But it was definitively sinister as he held it for slightly too long.
	"What do you want?"
	"I just want you to leave my colleagues and me alone. I need you to stop poking around where you're not welcome."
	"Wha-"
	"Your detectives, Grand Conserve. We see them skulking too closely around our bases of operations."
	Kline's eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly.
	"That's all I ask. Please call off your investigations. I'd hate to have to involve the Rangers in our plans. The Rangers are a just and responsible organization, after all."
	"What do you mean?"
	"Your practices and ideals align with ours, of course. You understand the delicate balance between Pokemon, humans, and technology. You don't use Pokeballs or Gauntlets or Potions or any other of those filthy machinations."
	The calm tone of his voice betrayed the vitriol of his words.
	"My colleagues and I will not involve ourselves with the business and workings of the Rangers. All I ask is that you extend that courtesy toward us as well."
	"But you said-"
	"It is necessary to remove the weed and its roots to keep it from growing back. You - your organization - is not a weed. It is a - fairly attractive flower that we wish to use to start our garden and to tend it into the gorgeous flower we know it can become."
	"You want us to work with you?"
	"Not at all. We don't need your assistance, nor do we want it. We just request that we are kept and remain separate from each other. For now."
	"I can't-"
	"You will," he said and lowered his jaw slightly. The light upon his face changed to some kind of horrifying mask due to the shadows over his eyes and mouth.
	A Gorebyss slithered from behind him. Its eyes and scales glowed like rainbow opals. Kline stood still for a few moments as they both exited the cave. When Kline snapped out of the trance she was temporarily in, the four of them were shunted out of the memory and back into the still picture of Kline's meeting with Pisces in her office.
	Waves of nausea filled them all. The waves and distortions grew - became violent. They felt their feet sink into the memory of the floor. It felt like mud - like a goo that would keep them in the memory as it continued to rapidly deteriorate.
	"Let's get out of here," Samantha managed to say without vomiting.
	When they returned to their physical senses, Forrest was next to the Grand Conserve. She was foaming at the mouth and violently seizing. Forrest managed to get her onto her side on the floor without her hurting herself more than she already was. Her eyes were pulled far up into her head with only the whites of her eyes visible. As she convulsed, she grunted low as she spit up bile. Blood began to leak out of her ears and eyes. Forrest was shouting for someone to get a doctor or anyone to help her.
	Luckily someone came to quickly sedate her. She was breathing and her heart was beating, but she was firmly unconscious. It took a few minutes for nurses and orderlies to get her on a gurney and to the medical bay. There was a frenzy of shouted orders being called out all around them, though not to either of them directly.
	Whatever Tristan told the Rangers was enough to curb their confusion at the moment. They were obviously more concerned with keeping the Grand Conserve alive and figure out how they could restore her consciousness. Forrest's panic lingered on his face for a bit longer than one might expect.
	At the end of the din, another nameless Ranger entered the office and addressed Tristan.
	"Senior Inspector, Leader Gutermuth will be arriving within the hour," he said with a salute and left the office.

	Forrest only nodded at Tristan's request - command that he return home. They both knew he was easily contacted should anything come up. Shaq'ti nodded and bowed her head at Tristan and teleported the two of them away.
	"Well, that was a bit dramatic," Samantha said and dusted herself off as if they had actually been in a cave. "Considering how easy that was and her reaction, Jonton must be dead, huh?"
	She was surprised to be reminded that it seemed to not affect Jonton at all, though he was unconscious at the time. It, instead, horribly affected Oracle. She also paused to consider how much different the mind shield looked when Ether showed her, where it was, how it behaved, and it what it showed when it was broken.
	"Seems like they spent a lot of time developing that skill," she said flippantly as to continue to behave inappropriately considering what they just witnessed. "Pretty fucking scary," she said off hand.
	"At least we know he's fucking insane. Don't know how much that's going to help us, though. I'm not great at anticipating crazies."
	She remained invisible the entire time and continued to only speak telepathically through her own Espeon. She appeared entirely unaffected by the events within the Grand Conserve's mind and seemed unbothered to continue the dual task of invisibility and telepathy. It might have been seen as impressive given different circumstances.

	"I gotta talk with Ms. Shade about Pisces," she said to herself once they reached his office. "Oh, and I guess you should speak with her, too. Meet me at the Southern Mauville Gate. I'll keep a channel open for you," she said and gestured to her Espeon.
	"We're in deep fucking shit," she said matter-of-factly. "But, yeah, I have no idea what they could possibly be up to. That's Asuna's job. That's why she's still in Rustboro - to find any clues she can regarding their timetable."
	"Oh, and I should be more transparent with what we've been doing. So, yeah, we were hired by Lady Fairfax to track down Jonton. That's what she wanted it to look like, anyway. She knew he was dealing with someone nefarious, that he wasn't intelligent enough to run the 'business' he was. She figured would eventually get caught and wanted to keep that from happening so 'we can prevent the bastard from besmirching our name,'" she said in fairly close imitation of Lady Fairfax.
	"Ironically, I was also trying to find more information about Team Zodiac, but that was treated as a completely separate mission unrelated to Jonton."
	"It never crossed our minds that it could be Team Zodiac that was behind Jonton. I'd only ever seen Zodiac's supposed leader interact with the Grand Conserve once and then encountered Aries, and that was it. The idea that they were working together, or was Team Zodiac puppetting Jonton?" she said and paused to consider the possiblility.
	"Initially, it doesn't make sense that they would use someone directly linked with an organization they want to destroy. But maybe they were playing a more political angle. Jonton commits crimes of terrorism, he's found out, inherently associated with Fairfax, civil unrest slowly brews until they're ousted or Zodiac finds an opportunity for them to be ousted."
	She paused again to consider what she just came up with. "Seems awfully convoluted. That could take decades. Are they immortal?"
	"Oh, wait. Is that why they want those mythical Pokemon? Are they planning to make themselves immortal so they can create their 'utopia'?" she said with a scoff but then winced.
	"Wow, I'm really not cut out for this whole theorizing thing," she said with a deep sigh and shook her head.
	"Anyway, if you haven't figured it out yet, we're counter-terrorists," she said plainly and continued with their conversation.
	"Lady Fairfax can be vaporized in a Hyper Beam, for all I care. If they weren't the heart of Hoenn's economy, they'd be on our short list. As it is, she's not worth my time. And I don't want to do anything with Jonton. He can go ahead and rot. Still, Jonton was found out, so if my theory is correct, they've succeeded with this part of their plan," she said with a shrug.
	"I can't imagine their Pokemon being away from themselves. So we've gotta just prepare to encounter them together. I also can't imagine allowing themselves to be detained or allowing each other to be detained at all or for any length of time that we'd be able to get any use out of them. We don't have a choice but to be lethal," she said with a shrug of her mouth and her shoulder.
	"I mean, they're known about. They're still a secret organization. No one would know if they died in the first place, especially if we're to believe there's only the 12 of them. Still, it's logical that if a Zodiac is killed and their Pokemon aren't, those Pokemon will just go to another Zodiac, which is definitely asking for a bad time."
	"Like when I encountered Aries, she's fucking terrifying. She was so confident and the air she and her two Pokemon exuded was - I think I was literally paralyzed by her Ampharos just by being that close to it."
	"But anyway, if Taurus, Pisces, and Aries are all accurate depictions of them as a whole, we're dealing with some seriously fucked up minds with horrifically powerful Pokemon. So, you know, no big deal."
	"Alright, I'm gonna go, now. It's getting late and I'm hungry. So, yeah, just reach out when you find the time to meet with Ms. Shade," she said with a raised brow and shrugged mouth. She touched the head of her Espeon who's gem glowed and they disappeared.[/quote]