Soris Region - Blog Posts

Memory, part 5 (mini-fic).

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Goncharenko Yevgeniy, personal bioresearch log.

Third stage.

09.01.425 AFE, 21:27

Liya is most certainly getting better. I like that. The work is still hard, though, but I’m getting a “window” tomorrow. What was the last time I’ve visited my dad? Good thing he works here, in the reactor complex, so, taking the monorail ride will be sufficient to meet him (and when I finally go on vacation, I’m going straight to the capital to meet mom).

EDIT: Apparently, there’ll be a new portion of nuclear fuel, loaded into reactors. I’ve managed to get security clearance for me and Liya, so, tomorrow we are going to go even deeper into facility than before! Gah, this line is SO awful...

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, general health monitoring datafile, optical and thermographic photos, full biological screening record datafile, Liya’s personal terminal activity log datafile]

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*So, are we here yet?* - somewhat nervously asked Latias, looking around. Right now, they were in one of the deeper parts of the facility, where the nuclear reactors were installed. The sheer constant roar of machinery in the turbine hall was unnerving, but now, they were closing to the reactors themselves.

- Almost... - started speaking microbiologist, when the not very old, but well-built man stopped near them and gave them a wide, even somewhat scary, smile.

- Son? Hello! - happily said aged man, pulling Yevgeniy into almost bone-crushing hug. - So, how’re the things going up here, if you didn’t have enough time to write mails to your old dad Klim at least once a week?

- Very busy, - tried to defend himself microbiologist.

- Don’t say ‘dat, where you’ve learned to defend like this, I was the one teaching it! - laughed Klim. - So, where’s my granddaughter?

*I’m here,* - replied Liya, coming out of shadow, still slightly afraid.

- So, that’s it? You know, son, I think you’ve made a damn good job! - proudly said sort-of-grandfather of young Latias. - Don’t dare you think, that we, down there, don’t know a s... something! We, power engineers, know loads of things! I’ve heard she’s very smart for her not even a year! So, Liya, can you tell me, how does the nuclear power plant work?

*Nuclear power plants obtain the heat needed to produce steam to drive the turbines through a nuclear physical process. This process, called fission, entails the splitting of atoms of...*

- Enough, I see ya’ know this. I’m damn proud of my son and you! Ya know, I think you’ll, in time, make a damn good part of the staff up there, in one of the main Divisions, and you’re sure a fine addition to our family from now on!

*So... does me not being human...*

- Shut it at once and don’t say such a stupid things! Of course you’re my granddaughter! - announced Klim, earning some strange looks from his colleagues in process. - No, it does not!

- Warning, shift number 5 - come to your stations! - sounded an announcement from the loudspeaker.

- Time, - shrugged Yevgeniy’s father, then turned to his son and granddaughter. - So, do you come with me or no? I’ve heard you have all clearances, so, just try to follow my instructions and not do anything stupid, okay?

- Okay, - agreed young man and Latias at the same time, proceeding with Klim shortly after. After some walk and taking a ride on the elevator, they’ve found themselves in the long gallery with thick glass, which encirled the fuel storage hall. In one of the corners, there was an entrance to the cabin of parked electrical overhead crane, along with remote control terminal nearby.

- We’ll be loading full set today, and I’m the crane operator. Not that hard, actually. Or, - suddenly turned Klim to the Liya, - does my nice little girl want to try to use the electric overhead crane herself?

*I... not s...* - tried to reply shocked Latias.

- Don’t be afraid, it’s very simple - right stick controls the movement of the crane itself, left - elevation of the grabber and grab-release control, screen shows you the map of working zone and all the data you need. Don’t worry, the automatics will prevent you from crashing fuel rods into anything or like this!

*But...*

- Come on, it can be once-in-a-life event! Do you want to regret it later? Even your dad rode the crane once, when he was fifteen! - continued father of Yevgeniy, not mentioning, that he got a severe reprimand from both superiors and his wife afterwards.

*Okay,* - decided to agree Liya, looking at the seat inside the cabin, turned, for some reason, towards her. - *What do I do now?*

- Take a seat and flick the switches, labeled S1 and S2. This will activate the crane and shift the seat into work mode. Afterwards... well, I’ll contact you, there’s an intercom system inside.

*Understood,* - replied dragon, disguised as human, doing as an old man advised. After two flicks, seat suddenly moved towards the very front of the cabin with a characteristic growl of low-speed engine, then shifted backwards a bit and turned around, giving a nice view on the work zone, while the doors behind her closed, cutting apart the cabin and the gallery, as well as protecting the against the air in the hall.

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- You’re sure about this? - asked his father Yevgeniy.

- Absolutely, I’ve let you control the crane back during the work in seaport, after all, - said Klim, taking a seat before the RC terminal. - From here, I can instantly override her controls, if she does something wrong. In fact, I can easily operate the crane remotely every time, it’s just that I prefer controlling it from the cabin.

- For thrill?

- For thrill, - agreed honorable crane operator, activating the intercom to crane’s cabin, - Shift the stick ahead, don’t be afraid!

Since the cabin was cut from the rest of the world by the double-reinforced protective glass and alloys, blocking the radiation and telepathy alike, they didn’t hear her answer, but the sound of engines and movement of crane told them more than that.

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“Wow,” - thought Latias, carefully pushing the control stick forward and hearing roar of powerful electric motors, as the entirety of machine started to move.

- Look at the screen. On it, you can see two points, one marked yellow, and one marked blue. The blue point is where you take the fuel assemblies, the yellow one - where you load them into refueling machine. When the refueling machine is operating, it’ll be marked green, but as soon as it’s empty and waiting for another supply, it’ll turn yellow again. Don’t worry - the automatic assist system will prevent you from colliding assemblies or mis-loading them. Move the crane to the stack of fuel, don’t be afraid!

*Okay,* - replied Liya, too concentrated on operating machine to notice, that her telepathy was not able to go beyond walls of radiation-proof cabin, which also blocked psychic abilities.

- Contact zone reached, - notified her computer, when the grabber was positioned right above one of the assemblies in the storage pool. She instantly released the right stick, stopping movement of the crane.

- Good, I see you’re in the right position. Now, open the grabber by pressing the lower button on the left control stick and then gently lower the grabber. As soon as it reaches fuel assembly, it will automatically grab it and lock, then raise itself to safe position. In fact, it shall also open automatically upon reaching the assembly, but better play safe.

This time, Liya did not attempt to reply, too concentrated on carefully lowering the grabber. Keen dragon eyes helped her a little, but the inertia of this thing and water refracting the image made it somewhat harder.

- Attention: assembly retrieval in progress! - finally announced automatic system, when the grabber locked onto a stack of fuel rods and rose up, although not leaving the water.

- Very good. Now, move the crane to the designated point and, as soon as you reach the contact zone, lower it gently. After the lower part of assembly passes the hole’s border, the automatics will take control and finish the procedure.

*Okay...* - telepathically “murmured” Latias, shifting the stick again and carefully passing the stack of the fuel rods through the small channel between pools and driving the crane all the way to the end of the second pool.

- Contact zone reached, - said the assist system once again, so Liya gently lowered the payload.

- Attention: assembly load in progress! - reported the automatics, when the gripper disengaged the fuel assembly got loaded into some machine on the bottom of the pool.

- One loaded into the transfer machine, 65 more to go! - sounded Klim’s voice from the intercom. Just as the Liya got horrified at the very thought of it, microbioligist’s father continued. - No need for you to finish this, though. Drive the crane back here, flick the S2 switch back to open the doors and exit the cabin, then let me take my place. Or you can press the red button, so the crane will drive itself back here. Wait, don’t do it - it’ll count as an accident.

Latias, which was slowly giving in to the realization of the sheer bizareness of the current events, had somehow managed to drive the crane back and exit it, allowing the rightful operator to take his place and continue the operation.

- My dad can be pretty weird sometimes, - commented Yevgeniy on it, seeing, how fast and professionally his father was driving the machine, loading fuel assemblies one after another.

*Maybe,* - agreed Liya, still somewhat shocked by what has just happened. - *So, what do we do now?*

- I suggest we get back to surface, onto test range, and you practice with your moves... your true form moves, I mean.

*Sweet!*

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- Aaand another Mist Ball. - said human, looking, how the fifth test dummy already was blown apart by the powerful Psychic move. - Is it your favorite attack?

*Of course!* - replied Latias, shifted into her true form and trying to commence sort-of-a strafing run, which was pretty hard, considering the not-so-big size of the range, - *No one but my kind can use it!*

- Okay, whatever. Are you satisfied yet?

*I am now!* - “said” she after blowing up the last dummy with Hyper Beam and melting a decent patch of snow around it, then slowing down and moving to Yevgeniy’ side. - *So, what do we do now?*

- Go home, I guess, - answered her human, looking at the wristwatch. - It’s almost night already, and I’ve got a lot of work tomorrow.

*Then let’s go!* - cheerfully agreed Liya, finally calming down Yevgeniy, who was still afraid worried her near-depression after the New Year disaster. Several minutes later, they’ve arrived into their quarters (though Liya was forced to temporarily switch from her form to the human one in order to pass through doorframes), then, after a small supper, each went to check their respective terminal.

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Two new infomail messages received.

Opening message number one...

09.01.425 AFE, 19:49

From:

Klim Goncharenko, Imperial Science Facility 9, Production Division, Underground Complex, Power Production Sub-Sector

To:

Yevgeniy Goncharenko, Imperial Science Facility 9, Bioscience Division, Surface Complex, Extraregional Pokemon Study Lab.

Topic:

Grampa’s musings.

Son, I’ve seen your girl, and, let me say it again, I’m damn proud of you. I’ve already phoned your mom and she’s very happy about it. Oh, and I also sent a small edutainment program to our little Liya Yevgeniyevna, which will teach her the basics of operating nuclear powerplant. Of course, I’m sure, that she’ll find something better in her life, but it’s pretty interesting to play and is good for overall development.

Love,

Your rusty old dad.

Opening the second infomail message...

09.01.425 AFE, 21:05

From:

Vladislav Pobegov, Imperial Science Facility 9, Central Office, Underground Complex.

To:

Yevgeniy Goncharenko, Imperial Science Facility 9, Bioscience Division, Surface Complex, Extraregional Pokemon Study Lab.

Topic:

Shenanigans.

Look, Zhenya, I know you’re my favorite student and microbiologist, I know your great skills and achievements... but isn’t this going a little bit far? And I don’t mean putting just Lati into operating an overhead crane, transporting the nuclear fuel - I mean putting someone with zero experience into operating such a machinery! I know, I know, Klim was ready to take it over at any second, should such a need arise, and she operated it for only a single loading, but still... I hope you’ve got my point. Please, don’t do it again. Think of our image! Though what I’m talking about, being an overseer of this chaos... Please, just don’t make the things worse for us, you and your Lati “daughter”. Thank you for understanding.

With sincere hope,

Vladislav Pobegov.

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Memory, part 4 (mini-fic).

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Goncharenko Yevgeniy, personal bioresearch log.

Third stage.

07.01.425 AFE, 22:49

I’m very worried about Liya. For this entire week, she remains depressed after what happened during the celebration of the New Year. I know, I might’ve been a little harsh, but I never... Could it be linked to her empathic abilities? I think I need to investigate that. In meantime, I think I’ll try to contact Biganskiy Sergey and ask him to install new firmware in our terminals. I’m fed up with those glitches. Also, the amount of work during this time was insane. Wish I could spend more time with her...

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, general health monitoring datafile, optical and thermographic photos, full biological screening record datafile, Liya’s personal terminal activity log datafile]

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- Liya, - said human, exiting the cleanroom’s airlock and dressing into the normal suit.

*Yes?* - replied apathetic human-disguised Latias, who was sitting on the nearby bench.

- Arcanists contacted me again, inviting us to excursion in their sector, subsector 4-24. The way to it lies through the monorail transport system, which passes through the decent part of the facility. I know, it’s mostly tunnels, but there are some nice places to see.

*Ah.*

- Come on, it’s not like we have something better to do for the rest of this day, - tried to cheer her up human, but it barely had an effect, so he continued. - Look, I know, I may’ve been a little harsh back during the New Year, but...

*But I’ve felt how you’ve felt! This horryfying feeling of helplessness, thoughts drifting apart and overall - I’ve felt every last moment of it! And it was me, who’ve cause you to suffer it!* - lashed Liya out, then dropped her head in her hands, starting to cry. - *It all was me... Why did I have to activate that beacon?*

- Liya, please, understand - I was less angry for what’s happened to me and much more scared about what could’ve happened to you! After all, - Yevgeniy’s voice dropped, - you’re the only one, whom I can call “child”.

*Why?* - replied confused Eon Pokemon.

- Because I’m infertile and can’t have kids normal way. I’ve poured more than a decade of research in creating you and making sure the usual biological problems won’t haunt you, like they haunt me, - said microbiologist in even more grim voice. - You may not be the Ultimate Lifeform, but it still counts, I guess. You’re stronger than your normal cousins, smarter, faster, have greater endurance, thrice the normal lifespan, which, considering your power, is astonishingly long, and so on, and so on. I just want you to be safe, after all I’ve done to you.

Latias remained silent, tears forming in her eyes. Being empath, she felt every last of his feelings behind those words. He truly, absolutely cared about her and wanted her to just be safe and happy.

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-... And here’s our prototyping lab for robots, - said the arcanist, gesturing at several three-dimensional printers and automatic assembly machines. - It can create robots up to ten on ten on ten meters in size. So far, there were very few robots, which don’t fit, so, they were forced to be manufactured in parts and assembled elsewhere.

*And what were those robots?* - asked him Liya, who was slowly, but surely regaining her interest to life.

- Barely anything worth mentioning: automated excavator and tunneling machine, UAV... Huh, there’s, actually, a pretty interesting one - the Imposer, a levitator-lifted heavy unmanned aerial fire support unit. Two frontal Ion Driver Cannons with great firing angles, one rear Ion Driver Cannon with similatily great angles, airburst charge launcher and underslung Matter Distortion Cannon, protection - Light Screen projectors and pseudo-matter barriers. It’s placed in the Hangar Five right now.

- MDC? Isn’t it, like, one of the greatest power hogs created? - wondered microbiologist.

- It is. In fact, the Imposer lacks the suitable energy source right now and needs a thick cable, connected to the local power distribution hub, to stay powered. Of course, our Division works on it, but the project is still in the very early stages. If you want to know more, ask about the D-type Power Drive. OK, so, now you can proceed to the firing range number five, where our newest more-or-less finished creation will be tested.

*Okay,* - agreed Latias, walking together with her “father” towards the next zone. While she was forced to spend a lot of time here in the human-like form, she didn’t mind it much.

The firing range itself looked... bland. A well-protected balcony, where they’ve stood, and a high, long concrete tunnel, on the far end of which the target was placed.

- Warning, combatron’s firing arcane cannon, clear the range! Repeat, combatron’s firing arcane cannon, clear the range! - sounded announcement from the loudspeakers.

*Combatron?* - asked puzzled Latias. - *What’s that?*

- Heck if I know, - replied scientist, looking at the test range. Mere seconds after announcement, an uncanny-looking and definitely arcane tech-based six-limbed robot jumped on the range, switched to bipedal walking mode, then it’s cylindrical head started glowing bright blue and opened somewhat like a backwards flower, then...

-... Wow, - whispered microbiologist, looking at what was previously meter-and-half-thick cube of solid reinforced armor concrete, but now was reduced to molten slag, along with two meters or so of normal concrete and rock behind it. - Such power in such a small platform.

- And it drains arcane energy like no tomorrow, especially on this mode, - responded Chugun, who has somehow managed to silently get close to them. - On full power mode, combatron can only fire the Assault Beam Cannon three times before fully depleting weapon power supply, it needs some time to cool down between shots... Prototype problems, you know.

- I doubt it’ll have to fire all of the shots, - said Yevgeniy, looking at what remained of the range again, then pointing on combatron. - Are those deployable blades on upper limbs or what?

- Yep, those are advanced cutter blades, which can be enshrouded in arcane energy to enhance cutting abilities! - proudly said full-fledged mechanical Pokemon, while combatron reverted to hexapedal locomotion mode and left the range.

- So, true killing machine. Nice. What is the purpose of it?

- Protection of our colonists and researchers, helping them in recon operations... 

- I know, I know, - waved his hand human. - Is the excursion over?

- For today - yes. Thank you for your visit!

*Bye*, - replied Liya, while she and Yevgeniy took a direction to the monorail station. For what it looked like, the amount of passengers today wasn’t exactly staggering, so Latias will be able to return to her true form during the transit.

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Accessing “LPT-LOG-1″ datafile…

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Goncharenko Liya, personal log.

08.01.425 AFE, 20:37

Today was a good day. The excursion in the Arcane Science Division Sector was interesting and fun, father’s and mine terminals are repaired an everything, in general, is nice! This revelation, though... I never knew about how much work father put into me and how he can’t have children of his own kind. That’s very sad. On the brighter side of things - I’ve felt, how much I worth to father, so, I’ll try to never fail him again!

Compulink system deactivated.

Memory, part 3 (mini-fic)

For less than a split-second, Yevgeniy saw a bright orange flash and felt, like his body was twisted in ways, which should not even be possible in the three-dimensional or even eleven-dimensional space, but right after it, he was brutally thrown back into reality, seeing triples and having his head spin like no tomorrow.

- So, apparently, it does have some unpredicted results on organic lifeforms, incapable of teleporting naturally, - sounded voice of Yelena Groisman. - Chugun - help him at once and leave this Latias to me!

- Her name... is... Liya, - mumbled microbiologist before horrifying pulsing sound in his ears got too loud and he passed out.

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- How many fingers do you see? - sounded voice from somewhere, when Goncharenko tried to open his eyes. His thoughts were still clouded and slowly arranging themselves back into place.

- Three, - replied Yevgeniy after several failed attempts, during which he could only mumble something incomprehensible.

- Good. Sorry, but no one knew, that slingshot relaying device will have such an effect on you. We’ve already collected data and will work on fixing it ASAP!

- If Liya is hurt, I swear, I’ll...

*I’m fine,* - “sounded” the telepathic voice from side. - *It was a little trippy at first, but nothing serious.*

- A little trippy? I’ve felt like I’ve experienced geometries beyond comprehension of any living being, and those geometries wanted to twist me, rip me apart  and push through infinitely small holes at the same time! - screamed man, who already fully regained his consciousness, but still felt weak in body.

- Looks like it was caused by the sling having too wide of a trajectory and too low speed of a swing, exposing teleportees to the interworld space for too long, - mused Chugun, listening to the Yevgeniy and reading the data from the terminal. - I can correct it right now.

- Do it! - ordered him Yelena Groisman.

- Zheka - sorry for this little inconvinience... - began Izya.

- Hold on, - said microbiologist, sitting up and turning to the young Latias, still disguised as a human, with a furious expression on his face, - Liya - what the heck?! What were you thinking about, activating the Slingshot Beacon?! Didn’t you hear, how Chugun talked about being in one piece and not clipping into ground, clearly exposing, that this device is still being tested and is still dangerous! What’s w... Liya, please, promise me, that you won’t put yourself in the danger like this anymore!

Seeing Yevgeniy suddenly break into tears, the entire arcanist team was surprised, while the Latias felt herself really sick for scaring and hurting her pretty much father like this.

*I promise... father,* - replied Liya, giving man a hug and starting to cry too.

- Well, now everything has settled, maybe, we shall continue? - asked Izya after both man and Pokemon from the Bioscience calmed down. - Zheka - I’m really sorry for this inconvenience with tseryobla and SRD. And you, Chugun, - slowly said arcanist in sinister voice, turning towards huge mechanical Pokemon, who started to slowly back away, - what were YOU thinking, grabbing the beacons with you and leaving them there? We know you can withstand troubles with tseryobla - after all, you were the one, who volunteered to test it several years ago and survived five hours of being trapped in the teleportational vortex - but honestly... Were you insane? What you can brush off, can kill human or normal Pokemon! Honestly, sometimes I’m not sure if I’ve really needed to create you.

- I... I don’t know, - replied Chugun in scared and slightly whimpering voice, continuing to slowly move away from the enraged scientist. - Something must’ve clouded my judgement bad. Like, really bad. I won’t do something like this ever again!

- Are you sure those two aren’t brothers? - whispered Yelena to Boris, who was just standing aside and enjoying the view.

- Nah, they aren’t brothers, at least not in blood. In the spirit, hovewer...

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Accessing “LPT-LOG-1″ datafile…

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Goncharenko Liya, personal log.

02.01.425 AFE, 21:14

I feel so bad right now. Even though it was more than a day ago, I still can’t get over it. My father... after I used this device, he instantly grabbed the second one and activated it, just to follow me. I remember, how he, after the teleportation, said, about how I have a name, and then collapsed into this horrible fit. Arcanists said, that his brain couldn’t handle such a surge of the arcane energy and the long exposure to the interworld overdimensional space, but still, seeing him spasming like that, and having this horrible feeling of barely to no control of his body and thoughts dispersing, like a vapour in the dry air... I can’t bear to stand that. And all of it was, because I was too curious and wanted to try out this beacon. I don’t even know what to think of myself anymore.

Compulink system deactivated.

ISF9 Chronicles, part 5

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Accessing “NB-CHRN-3″ datafile...

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Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

01.08.419 AFE

In month from now, the Auditor from Imperial Palace will come, to inspect our Facility. According to some of the rumors about him I’ve heard, he is quite a pricky bastard. Hope we find some ways to teach him a lesson!

10.08.419 AFE

Arcane Science Division has accidentally created crystal with very strange and anomalous properties, namely - ability to create such a perfect illusions, that they can become reality to whoever sees them. However, this is still in theory, since the most it can do now is create illusions of simple geometric shapes with 256 colors for them available. They need much more computational power and precision electrodes before this effect can be achieved (and, for what it looks like, cooperate with Chemistry and Production Divisions to grow a brand new crystal, since this one is impure and irregular as flak). Still, seeing porn through device like this...

11.08.419 AFE

Worked in the Surface Complex again, helping Bioscience and transportation. Met someone, named Yevgeniy Goncharenko. Nice peep, actually. I’m kinda surprised in his interest in Lati, but, I think, it’s nothing out of order.

EDIT: Apparently, he was the best student of the Director back in the Capital Bioscientific University. So, ‘guess I’ve just made a very good connection.

17.08.419 AFE

Those Flygons are really cute. I’ve never thought I’d say something like that, but I legitly think, that those Dragon/Bugs are cute. How is it even possible. What has become of me?

23.08.419 AFE

Airship left today. One of the young Vibravas, who tried to mimic the older relatives, tried to also “escort” it to the edge of our Facility’s airspace, but almost got caught into the propellers. Thankfully, one of the Flygons saved it before any damage was done.

29.08.419 AFE

Arcanists cooperated with Chemistry and Production Divisions to grow a brand-new crystal, hook it up into their supercomputer and then test-prank people with it. I was quite shocked, seeing my laptop turn into the old one. Those illusions are really realistic beyond any imagination. I think I’ll help them in preparations for the Auditors visit. Good thing my porn stash is in the nice condition! He is gonna be so surprised...

...Datafile corruption detected.

Repair initiated.

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Ancient Soris Empire’s robotics, Combatron.

Back in the ASE’s days, the Combatron-class assault robot was thought to be true pride of the Soris’ military robotics. This machine was one of the most advanced and powerful battle robots ever created.

Standing 1m 70cm high, this anthropomorphic arcane science-based robot had six limbs.

The two upper limbs, in additional to five-fingered palm manipulators, housed very sharp, sturdy and durable cutter blades, which could’ve been made even more deadly by activating the blade enhancing system and enshrouding them in clouds of typeless destructive arcane energy. In the idle mode, the blades were folded to the forearms like a switchblade.

The two middle limbs had five-fingered palms and could house two elbow-mounted arcane repeater guns of submachine guns. In practice, however, they were mostly left empty, to enhance robot’s mobility. Some of the later robots, however, had two grappling hook launchers installed here, to enhance the mobility of machine.

The two lower limbs were digitigrade, six repositionable digits total.

All limbs had advanced gripping systems, which allowed them to climb smooth vertical walls like a Treecko. In addition to it, the small deployable claws allowed for better grip on non-smooth surfaces (though they were pretty good at ripping flesh too).

The servos of the combatron were able to provide enough power and movement speed to allow robot to quickly jump from wall to wall even in the halls with 20 meters between walls.

Inside the main logic core, the combatron had Calcutec Hexalith Cluster CPU, 64 GDUnits (GigaDataUnits) of RAM and 50 TDUnits (TeraDataUnits) of ROM. This setup, along with advanced software, allowed machine for being pretty smart, although not really sapient (bar few experimental models)

The combatron also had the cloaking system, based on the research of the Lati dragon’s cloaking abilities. While it had some quirks (namely, only worked at full capacity if robot moved slowly enough and was slowly giving away as the Assault Beam Cannon was charging), it still gave robot an undeniable combat advantage.

The mostly-cylindrical head housed the main weapon of this robot - the dreaded Assault Beam Cannon. While it, theoretically, could fire in several different modes - short pulse, cutting beam or beam of incredible power, capable of obliterating pretty much everything (the Assault Beam). However, the first two modes were, for some reason, wearing down the cannon’s system too much, so, they were very rarely used.

The key to everything in this robot was the power source - two integral and one removable ultra-high density rechargeable arcane energy batteries and multi-purpose power converter. They were also key to its enormous price, since they were incredibly hard and expensive to produce. The recharge was also quite a problem, since very few power sources could provide sufficient amount of power in sufficiently short time.

Before and during the Ancient Soris War, only two thousands of units were produced. Some of them were deployed and fought on the battlefields of Soris, some of them were stashed and never activated and some were moved to the colonies during the final phase of war to act as their guardians. However, not all robots were successfully transported and some were lost.

However, the last part does not apply to the Shift-verse, where the Empire, instead of Ancient Soris War, got time-shifted 3100 years ahead and, therefore, was never destroyed and even prospered in the new time.

Memory, part 2 (mini-fic)

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Accessing “GY-PLFU-LOG-1″ datafile…

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Goncharenko Yevgeniy, personal bioresearch log.

Second stage.

25.6.424 AFE, 19:43

Huh... Looks like she has imprinted on me. ‘Guess it’s good, because it means easier further observation and experimentation. Also, reinforced cleansuit was a great idea - even the young Lati dragons have pretty sharp claws of their... arms, paws? Whatever. Still, the hatching process, which, like the others of Psychic Pokemon, which were observed before, involved usage of Psychic energy to telekinetically shatter the eggshell, but here, instead of normal breakapart, she blew it up with the force of a pipe bomb! Good thing equipment was protected (it’s a lab for studying Pokemon, after all) and eggshell itself was not hard enough to do any damage. Still, looks like the “mental capacity upgrade”  is already showing, at least in the Psychic power.

23.7.424 AFE, 18:25

For someone born not within the nest, in the embrace of loving mother, but, rather, within cold confines of the laboratory, surrounded by lifeless scientific equipment, she does surprisingly good (and by “surprisingly good” I mean “just as good as normally-hatched Lati dragon, if not even better”). She is quite playful (I need to buy some beer to our arcanist team for giving me this thermographic camera. As good as Lati can cloak or pseudo-Transform, they can’t completely mimic thermal emissions of those they impersonate or hide them), very good learner (once again, I need to buy some more beer to our arcanists, because, if not for their advanced identity recognition system, she would’ve succeeded in accessing my terminal and I don’t want to even think, what she woud’ve done then. Hm... Maybe, I should give her her own terminal? It’ll help with some mental testing experiments and will (I hope) slow her down) and is pretty healthy (thankfully, arcane science team was not involved in this, or I’d have my entire salary spent on beer. Just joking, most of them hate beer, but love nullified Stones for their personal arcane experiments. This shit, most of which is imported from the Kalos mining site, isn’t cheap AT ALL. I’m so going zero on money...).

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, general health monitoring datafile, optical and thermographic photos]

31.12.424 AFE, 21:15

Today, our Division’s New Year celebration will, for the first time since the founding of this Facility, encompass both surface and underground complexes. Thanks to my connections with Director, I was able to get clearance to bring Liya (the young Latias of mine) to the celebration. Not without stun-collar, of course, but still better than nothing. We have to go now, so, everything is in attached!

P.S. Liya is growing up really fast, even faster, than normal Lati. Can it be side effect from the viruses I’ve used? Of course, she should stabilize once her body reaches adult stage, but... Anyway, the mind enhancement part most definitely works.

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, general health monitoring datafile, optical and thermographic photos, full biological screening record datafile, Liya’s personal terminal activity log datafile]

-                                                                                                                              -

-... 56, 57, 58, 59, 00!!! - sounded scream of hundreds of employes of the facility, when the clocks of the Imperial Palace marked beginning of the 425 year after the foundation of the Empire. Liya still couldn’t understand, why this was so important to the humans, but, considering sheer amount of happiness she sensed, it was. Still, those colorful explosions in the sky were really beautiful, even if slightly hard for her sensitive ears.

- It was beautiful, wasn’t it? - asked her human, who took the role of her father. Liya knew, that human could never be a parent of Lati, but she didn’t really care - he loved her and cared for her.

*Yes,* - replied she. - *It was really beautiful. So, what do we do now?*

- First of all - you drop your camouflage and return to your real form. Second - we go into the Central Biodome and take a ride on elevator into the Underground Complex. I’m sure you’ll like it.

*OK,* - replied she, reluctantly dropping her false human appearance and slowly hovering along with him into the huge dome-shaped building. As much as she wanted to stay on the outside, inside, it was warm, and cold was not something she liked.

- Looks like most of our Division wants to party on surface, - made a comment scientist, looking, how surprisingly few people were in the dome. - Anyway, let’s take a ride on the elevator! Believe me, even the Imperial Palace does not have this kind of visuals!

*Wow...*- telepathically “whispered” Latias, looking through the glass walls of the elevator cabin. Right now, they were descending into giant artificial cylindrical cavern with sleek white ceramic-looking walls, which were covered in similarily-sleek balconies, terraces and rounded windows.

- Welcome to the Underground Complex, Bioscience Division Lobby! - proudly replied Yevgeniy. - On your right, you can see cafeteria, where employees of this Division can relax and eat some nice food. On your left, there’s a small recreation zone, when employees can entertain themselves. This part of complex is highly automated. Right now, the illumination should’ve been toned down and ceiling should’ve been switched into night mode, with imitations of stars and moon, but because of the holiday, it was dropped down, just for one night. Each of the main Divisions - Bioscience, Arcanics, Physics, Production and Chemistry - have their own lobbies like this. To be honest, arcanists got even bigger lobby... but our is still much more beautiful!

*Arcanists?* - wondered Liya.

- The ones, who use arcane science and move it ahead. If you want to, I can give you a tour in the Arcane Science Division’s Sector. By the way, research of your cloaking and psychic abilities helped them immensely!

*Thanks,* - replied Latias, feeling slightly shy.

- Honestly, Liya, you grow up so fast... - said a human, looking at nowhere in particular. Young Eon Pokemon would’ve asked him a question, if not for elevator finally arriving at the bottom of cavern and opening the doors. Human and Lati dragon left the cabin and walked through the large atrium, complete with trees and fountains. As large as it was, a decent part of it was covered with tables with lots of dishes and drinks, most of which had humans sitting at them and partying.

Soon, Liya and Yevgeniy arrived near the relatively small table for eight persons, which had only six of places occupied.

- Hi there, Seryoga! - welcomed his old friend microbiologist. - How’s going?

- Good, we were waiting for you for, like, a thousand years!

- Well, we’ve finally arrived. Do you mind if we take a seat?

- No probs, comrade! But can your Lati friend fold her wings a little? There’s not much place here, you know.

- Lati have rigid variable-sweep wings, not the classic ones! However... Liya, - Yevgeniy turned to Latias, - can you position you wings like for a high-speed flight? No, wait, forget it, it won’t do a thing, not with your reposition angles and wingspan. Can you use this pseudo-Transform?

*I can,* - replied young dragon, focusing her inner power on the shape of her body and slowly, but surely remaking it into what she desired.

- Holy flak cannon, - whispered one of the other scientists, seeing this. - Zheka - mind if I read your files on this?

- Won’t, - said Yevgeniy, seeing, how Liya relatively quickly changed her look from the golden-feathered Latias into what could pass as a human teenager and then taking a seat.

- Awesome, - nodded Sergey, then pulled a decently-sized package from under the table. - Blue cheese, my personal project. I’m a mycologist, after all. Hope it’ll pass good along with our sparkling wine!

- So, an actual sparkling wine this time, and not a gargle blaster from our Booze-o-tron, constructed back in 419? Cool. Liya - sorry, this drink is not for you, since it’s a poison to Lati. Speaking strictly - it’s also a poison to humans, but our organisms can metabolise it somewhat, giving some interesting effects. If you want to drink - here’s your lemonade, - nearly motor-mouthed Yevgeniy on a single breath, grabbing a bottle from another table nearby and pouring some of its content into glass before disguised Latias.

- Well, Bon Appetit, I guess. For the ISF! - raised the glass, full with sparkling wine, Sergey.

- For the ISF! - all of the sitting ones clinked glasses. Latias did not know, what did it truly mean, but decided to support it and raised her own too, causing a few friendly laughes. Soon after, the mealtime came and all men and women started to enjoy the culinary mastery of the Division’s cafeterias. Liya, seeing this, decided to give it a try. Surprisingly, despite her initial fears, the human food was pretty tasty, if only a bit too spicy for her.

- Li, be careful - our food, unadapted, might taste quite good, but eat too much of it today - and you are so gonna regret it tomorrow! - warned her Yevgeniy. She slowed down a little, but overall, the celebration has continued, especially when most of table near the center of the Lobby were moved aside to make a room for dance.

Suddenly, a flash of orange light, a thuderous clap - and the huge, six-limbed mechanical Pokemon appeared just a few meters away from partying scientists.

- WHAT THE FLAK?! - screamed one of the biologists, trying to jump and only succeeding in falling on back together with his chair. - Chugun - what the heck was that?

- Slingshot relaying device test, - replied the creation of the leading arcanist team in his usual metallic voice. - From what it looks like, I’m still in one piece, hadn’t clipped into the ground and operating, so, test’s a success!

- What in the world this “slingshot relaying device” thing is? - asked an already drunk mycologist, examining a piece of blue cheese.

- An addition to the tseryobla, which allows teleportation from one point to other without need to stop in the tseryobla itself. As you know, tseryobla works by using the Reflection World as an unexpressed axis for-

- Please, keep it short!

- I’m doing it. So, it uses the Reflection World, which, as some of you know, is a sort of a border world, as an unexpressed axis, so we can swing whatever we want to teleport around the border world and get it back without it actually going past the barrier. What the slingshot relaying device does in the grand scheme of things? It allows us to pull one slingshot right after another, eliminating the need for rematerialize in-between teleportation beginning and destination points. Basically, it allows true point-to-point teleportation, without need to stop in the tseryobla.

- Cool! - whistled Yevgeniy.

- By the way - Groisman, Maler and I are very grateful to you for the Teleport move research data and we want to invite you to our small party, - said Chugun somewhat shy, then placed two cylindric devices with a single covered button on top of each of them on the table. - Those are Slingshot Beacons. If you want to go to us right now, you can press the button and slingshot yourself directly - it’s completely safe, trust me - into the Teleportation Lab 3, where Team 2 has set our own quiet party. If you don’t want... then you can travel the old-fashioned way or just stay here. Anyway, I’m done here. Goodbye!

One more orange flash, thunderous clap - and Chugun vanished.

- I knew arcanists had some loose screws, but never thought, that their screws are that loose, - slowly commented one of the geneticists.

*What’s this?* - asked still slightly confused Liya, grabbing one of the teleportation beacons.

- A marker device for teleportation. You need to flip a safety cover and press a button to initiate sequence, - mumbled mycologist, examining yet another piece of blue cheese. - Nah, this strain of mold isn’t as good as earlier one.

- Liya, do you really want to... LIYA!!! - screamed Yevgeniy, when Latias, who was a little too curious for her own good sometimes, used one of the beacons and got teleported away. - Seryoga - thank you a flakking lot! Guys, gotta go now!

With these words, microbiologist grabbed a second Slingshot Beacon and activated it, hoping to get to his creation and almost adoptive daughter before something bad happens.

Memory, part 1 (mini-fic)

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New infomail message received.

20.6.423 AFE, 12:04

From:

Yevgeniy Goncharenko, Imperial Science Facility 9, Bioscience Division, Surface Complex, Extraregional Pokemon Study Lab.

To:

Grigoriy Valetov, Imperial Science Facility 9, Bioscience Division, Underground Complex, Samples and Specimen Requisition Office.

Topic:

Re: New specimen required.

“Dr. Valetov, for how long will I be forced to repeat this? I said it quite obvious - I need a Lati dragon egg for my genetic engineering project. I know you have a healthy supply of cryo-frozen Dragon-type eggs in your underground cryo-storage, so, can’t you donate at least one to me? I won’t touch the amoral side of your breeding and eugenics experiments - after all, it’s all for science and greater good - but you are disrupting the scientific process here. Or, maybe, I shall write report about this to Dr. Pobegov?”

Open private chat?

To whom?

Private chat opened to: Victor Osipovich, Imperial Science Facility 9, Bioscience Division, Underground Complex, Cryogenic Specimen and Sample Storage.

You: Vitya, it’s a complete screwup. This damn cleansuit, just like before, expects us to handle him a Lati dragon egg, preferably, laid just before freezing.

Victor: So what? Can’t you just tell him to go unzip himself somewhere in the corner, like the previous time?

You: Heck no! Do you remember, that he was favorite student of this trepanatic old fart?

Victor: I do, and so what?

You: He gave me a threat to report us to Facility’s boss. Knowing, that this whitehead will listen to his favorite, and that we already have some unpleasant moments in our biographies... in short, we are very likely to blast off from this facility at the speed of light, much faster than a meteorological rocket.

Victor: What a douchebag! So, what do we do?

You: I guess, we need to give him the egg, if we want to stay here. Dunno about you, but I do want - full social and medical care, good salary and like this is not something I’d like to lose.

Victor: So am I. By the way, had he specified, what Lati dragon egg does he need?

You: No.

Victor: Well, I’ll give him Latias egg then. You know, just how problematic Lati females may get with their pranks, cloaking and like this.

You: Yep. Great idea, by the way. Over.

Chatlink terminated.

                                                                                                                              Compulink system active.

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Accessing “GY-PLFU-LOG-1″ datafile...

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Goncharenko Yevgeniy, personal bioresearch log.

First stage.

22.6.423 AFE, 14:54

Finally, those two redtapers delivered the egg to me - after just two months of constant requests! It’s still cryo-frozen, but ready to get de-freezed at any moment. According to the attached datatape, this egg was frozen right after laying, so, it’s a perfect material for my little experiment. Good thing I’ve tested my virus long ago, on some basic samples...

[Attached file: LDM-4-1 artificial virus DNA sequence datafile]

26.6.423 AFE, 17:32

Today, at 10:54, I’ve de-freezed the egg and injected the first portion of virus. Right now, it’s undergoing incubation with constant progress monitoring. So far, so good. I hope not to lose this one.

[Attached file: monitoring log from automated incubation chamber]

26.7.423 AFE, 18:32

It’s been a whole month, but development of embryo... actually, seems pretty good. According to the datanote from the Lab 7, normal incubation period for Lati dragons - specificially, females - is almost a year! Of course, it’ll allow me to monitor results better and make corrections in event of something going wrong, but still... Anyway, my free time ends in two days, then back to microbiological experiments. I hope I’ll be able to convince Director to cut it somewhat to allow me to work on my personal project.

[Attached files: monitoring log from automated incubation chamber, general schedule for checks and injections of supporting biological agents, LDM-4-2 artificial virus DNA sequence datafile]

30.01.424 AFE, 23:37

Whoa, more than half’o’year has passed! Speaking of which... Two months after the initial portion of virus, embryo was nearly destabilized by something similar to the immune reaction (how it’s possible in egg is a matter of entirely different research, which I’ve successfully passed to the Lab 4), but, thankfully, some immunosupressants and modified virus had done the trick. If my calculations are correct, it won’t impact actual immune system, which’ll “go online” after the hatching, but, in case of an emergency, I have antibiotics, compatible with Dragon-type and Psychic-type organisms. Also, vaccines.

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, monitoring log from automated incubation chamber, general schedule for checks and injections of supporting biological agents, LDM-4-3 artificial virus DNA sequence datafile]

25.6.424 AFE, 15:52

According to the automated incubation chamber monitoring system, tomorrow the egg will finally hatch - exactly after year of development! Maybe, I should’ve updated this personal log with entries more often... but anyway, I had not, and all my observations and relevant data are stored in attached datafiles. I wonder, how will it turn out? Of course, I’ve tried to enhance Latias’ mental capabilities and lifespan (according to my calculations, it’ll become thrice as long - roughly 3000 years or slightly more!), but I’m still not sure, will it work as intended or not... Anyway, I think need to bring my reinforced cleanroom suit to bear tomorrow.

[Attached files: personal observation and log datafile, monitoring log from automated incubation chamber, general schedule for checks and injections of supporting biological agents]

                                                                                                                              The emerald eye sprung open, trying to look around, but met only darkness. Her body felt numb, there was too little place, she couldn’t breath, so, she focused all of her inner power and released it at once.

The eggshell shattered, flying everywhere and revealing a small gold-feathered Latias to the world - rigid wings swept at low-speed position, stabilizer fins set straight.

Mere seconds after that, a pretty big figure, covered in blue-ish material (except for face, which was hidden beyond the bent sheet of something transparent), carefully rose from beyond one of the things she couldn’t even begin to recognize and started to approach her.

While she could not read feels of other the same way adult Lati dragons could, she still sensed no ill intentions in him and felt some distant... but definitely parental feeling, so, she flew right to him and clenched to the material, which was covering his real body.

ISF 9 Chronicles, part 4.

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Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

04.07.419 AFE

Arcanists finished replacing focusing lenses in irradiation chamber. The material for them has to be imported from Kalos mining site, then purified by using some equipment, unknown to me, and many, many kilowatts of electricity and only then they can start forming the lenses themselves. Also, after the initial forming, they have to be autoclaved and microwaved, as well as sterilized by gamma radiation, before further procedures can be commenced, then this cycle has to be repeated again. No wonder they’re so expensive!

08.07.419 AFE

Vitya brought something from his friend in Bioscience Division. Says, that it’s some kind of a “really dank kush” and we shall “blaze it”. Whatever, I guess. My intuition does not say anything bad about it.

08.07.419 AFE

Shiiit... This weed was really dank as flak. We easily glomped two bags of small pies. I think I’m starting to...

08.07.419 AFE

Dude, I can FEEL data. This is such a wonderful feeling... I mean, my brain is a bioneural computer or whatever, the things I maintain are also computers, only non-bioneural. I think I need to share my ideas with IDE.

09.07.419 AFE

I don’t even know what to think anymore. Yesterday, I’ve got really high and wrote a program under the effects of weed. The program itself is fine and good, but the structure and language... How I’ve managed to do it on several esoteric languages... WHAT WILL I TELL TO SUPERIORS?!

EDIT: Thankfully, my high self was high and kind enough to make version on the UPL3 with commentaries. It’s just as optimised as other versions and even has all the commentaries, though I’m yet to fully decipher them, because of them being written under the effects of the weed.

12.07.419 AFE

Arcanists and bioscientists had finally discovered the reason behind the Mega Stone’s explosion. Yes, my suspicions were right - it was tied to the Flygons’ adaptability. Apparently, this metamorphosis-inducing trait conflicts with usual Mega Evolution metamorphic signature or something like this, their speech was complicated. What’s more important is that it’s too similar to the Mega Evo and, when the Proto Stone gets irradiated with Flygon’s tissue serving as life energy modulator, it starts to morph into five kinds of different Mega Stones at the same time, crystallic structure becomes unstable, tensions rise, then boom - every last bit of energy gets released as Stone becomes high-velocity dust.

18.07.419 AFE

Arcanists monitored our region today. They say, that there are some pretty strange readings in the Grey Mountains. No shit. There’s like, a whole science town up there, dedicated to the research of this phenomena! Still, if the readings are strange for them, compared to the previous ones... I don’t like it, not at all.

25.07.419 AFE

Saw arrival of the “Overlord of Skies”-class airship in person. It’s so magnificent. Interestingly enough, some Flygons not just flew along with it, but, like, escorted it, trying to provide additional data as much as they could and helping to correct course. Of course, with autopilot, developed here in the Robotics Sub-Division, it wasn’t necessary, but still, I (and pilot, for what it seems) appreciate it. Looks like those dragon-bugs are smarter than they seem to be...

End of the “NB-CHRN-2″ datafile has been reached.

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ISF 9 Chronicles, part 3

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Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

13.06.419 AFE

Was working in the Bioscience Sector, Underground Complex, Cryogenic Specimen and Sample Storage (quite a name, BTW). Heard by the edge of my ear, that today, they’ve got several cryo-preserved eggs of Lati dragons, which, if I’ve heard correctly, were frozen right after laying. Considering, how elusive and protective of their offspring Lati are, I don’t even want to think of the exact methods of getting a hold of those eggs.

EDIT: Apparently, that involved tranq dart carbine, shotgun, loaded with Yadper Berry extract, Nega-Dark Stones and some other things. Considering, just what kind of an infernal substance Yadper Berry extract is (to compare this stuff to standard tear spray is like comparing a kiloton-grade nuclear device to a papirosa lighter), and how Nega-Dark Stone is capable of completely suppressing any psychic abilities in a small radius, this may not involve death of a parent Latis. Well, that’s a relief. Still, the Yadper extract is something, that may sometimes make you wish for death, especially if it gets into eyes, nose or mouth. Heck, this things burns even on the skin, and if it gets into open wound - say hello to many years of PAIN! I wonder, if Houndoom’s fire works through the same means...

EDIT2: Yes, it does. Thank the Director for making this internal info access network! Also, finally got an answer, why they don’t always suffer from it - apparently, their “chemtox injection” (basically, adding the pain chemicals into fuel for their fire attacks) is optional, since the Houndoom’s chemtox substance takes longer to synthesize, than fuel. Also, it allows them to fight for dominance in pack without crippling opponents for a long time and, basically, rendering them useless for the future hunts. Pretty interesting.

15.06.419 AFE

Was in Physics Sector. Found them designing something, called “ion driver cannon”. They say those guns are for hunting. Huge, liquid nitrogen-cooled particle accelerator guns, which require pretty much small nuclear reactor to just be powered. Yeah, totally for hunting. A hunter with a gun, followed by a truck with a reactor and cooling system. Do they plan to hunt adult Lugias or something with it? If so, Bioscience from all Facilities will rip their throats out.

20.06.419 AFE

Worked in Surface Complex, helping installing automatic cargo monorail control systems and debugging it for past 4 days. Tried to overcome my fear and get close to Flygons. Actually, they are rather adorable... as soon, as you get used to it. Thankfully, they are more Dragons, than Bugs, and their temper is good. Also, apparently, they can adapt to almost any kind of weather conditions (their secondary typing changes from Bug to Fire/Water/Ice/Ground, depending on what they need at the current moment), and Bioscience speaks of enhanching it, allowing them to adapt to pretty much anything (poisonous surroundings, high levels of radiation, biological contaminations and so on). Looks like they’ve heard, that our colonists in Alola call those dragons “Spirit of Change”, and decided “We can make it even better”! Are they trying to create world’s most adaptable Pokemon? I’m not sure, will they succeed in this or not, and what to expect from it...

24.06.419 AFE

It gets weirder and weirder. While, usually, most Mega Stone (the anomalous material, which can induce drastic temporary metamorphosis in specific Pokemon) creation attempts end in failures, the attempt to create Flygonite ended up in disaster. The damn boulder EXPLODED INTO DUST after getting irradiated with enough arcane energy to raise army of undead, heavily damaging the expensive-as-flak focusing lenses in process (thankfully, emitters had survived). Why do I know this? I was a part of team, who investigated the control automatics of this irradiation chamber - just in case, if they were the reason for it. They weren’t. I wonder, if the adaptational abilities of the Flygons have something to do with it...

27.06.419 AFE

Yesterday, I’ve tried the moonshine from the “United Divisions’ Apparatus”. Interestingly enough, today, there’s no hangover. Looks like I shall thank arcanists, chemicists and bioscientists for it. Especially the last ones - whatever drug they’ve given me, it worked like charm. The only bad thing is that I can barely remember, what was happening at this party. Looks like those experimental mixes were too much.

EDIT: Apparently, I was hanging out with Director and tear-jerkingly telling him, how hard our work is. Instead of firing us, he raised our salaries by 5%. Well, better not to upset him!

30.06.419 AFE

I never thought I’d see something like this. Basically, in Surface Complex, Bioscience Division, one Machamp has escaped and started wrecking shit. When he got to the Crematory, he was met by MTU-2 multipurpose quadruped robotic unit. I kid you not, this robot (square-like quadrupedal platform with turret, on which two manipulators and counterweight to them are installed. They are also resilient and durable as flak, capable of operating in the middle of corrosive agent spill or inside the working nuclear reactor) slowly approached this four-armed shit, then, somehow, managed to clench the lower arms with manipulators, quickly twisting and breaking them, while non-chalantly ignoring Pokemon’s Dynamic Punches (what the flak the robot’s covering is made of?), then it just... started to squeeze Pokemon’s body with enough force to nearly cut it apart, then it, when the Machamp tried to grip and break the manipulators, shifted the counterweight and started to spin the turret and walk, eventually driving Machamp into wall at high speed. When the Pokemon finally fainted, MTU-2 just carried the unconcious (and horribly damaged) body into the open high-temperature cremation chamber, then closed and activated it. I’m not sure, whether this Machamp was normal, or this robot was modified, but I’m sure this picture will give me many nightmares from now on...

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ISF9 Chronicles, part 2

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Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

16.05.419 AFE

The Physics Division is amazing. Today, I saw result of their cooperation with Production and Arcane Science Divisions. Basically, they’ve wanted to create the most powerful laser unit in the world... and they’ve succeeded. That wouldn’t be much of a problem, since they’ve also created absorber shield for it, but someone has forgotten to link it to the control system and, because of improper carrying, jammed the mechanism. Once the laser was activated, the shield was supposed to be lowered... but it didn’t. Laser coudn’t be disengaged until the firing procedure is complete, or else it would’ve been damaged beyond repair and/or blown up. In short, there is now a pretty big hole in the 2.5 meter-thick wall, as well as wall behind it, along with some of the molten concrete mass damaging the non-organic matter reprocessors (which are used for recycling junk). Needless to say, the Managers of those Divisions, as well as the Director of the Facility, are not pleased. Although, I need to say, this laser unit was really powerful.

20.05.419 AFE

Found out what the Lab 12 from Chemistry Division was up to. Apparently, this was a great project, one to unite all Divisions... and it was a moonshine apparatus. Still, all of the Divisions participated in creating it: Chemistry Division calculated the most optimal way to produce and refine the liquid, Bioscience Division grows the best components and produces basic mash, Production Division, along with Physics Division, build the apparatus itself and Arcane Science Division adds some unique filters to drive out remains of methanol, acetone, aldehydes and such. 

23.05.419 AFE

Today, the advanced Earth monitoring satellite “ReconSat 3″ was launched from our facility. Why is it important enough for me to write about it in my log? Because I also worked on this satellite, tweaking the reaction wheel control system. I’m proud of participating in the Imperial Space Program, even if such a way. What this sat will do? It’ll allow us to monitor arcane energy readings in most parts of the world (the satellite network for total monitoring is yet to be completed). It’s also powered by the small nuclear fission reactor, which is considered a masterpiece of both Physics and Production Divisions.

30.05.419 AFE

The satellite has got first pictures of Unova region. The unique strain of arcane energy, dubbed “Dragon Force” by arcanists because of possible link to the Unova’s Great Dragon (Bioscience is yet to give it official name), is a pretty interesting phenomenon, especially because there are three easily distinguishable “patterns” in the singular “flow”. There is also some weather-influencing field, but the “flows” here are separate.

12.06.419 AFE

The first month of my work in the Facility has ended. To be honest, I’ve never expected it to be like this. I thought it would be great, everyone working for the better future the best they can... Instead, from what I’ve seen, there’s chaos, where the research plans are merely guidelines, everyone does whatever he/she wants, people band together into interest groups, equipment gets misused major time, the Divisions are cooperating and competing with eachother at the same time... And, somehow, IT WORKS. From what I see, the way superiors treat Facility is “dump them funding, equipment and general plans - they’ll make it”, while the Director and Divisional Managers overwatch the personnel to ensure they won’t go too overhead. And they succeed in doing what the outside world wants from them. You know what? Screw this, I’m going in! If you can’t stop it - side with it!

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ISF 9 Chronicles, part 1

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Biganskiy Sergey, personal log.

12.04.419 AFE

Hm... This is my first personal log entry, and I don’t even know, what to write... Okay, I’ll... Ah!

Anyway, today, I was finally transferred into the Imperial Science Facility 9, as a member of a Operative Computer System Service Team. In short, sysadmin, maintenance man and programmer. At least planned salary makes it worth it.

13.04.419 AFE

Got to meet my new team. Still not sure what to think about them. On one hand, they’re pretty professional guys. On other... I’m not sure I’ll be ever able to become a part of that chaos.

14.04.419 AFE

Studying new equipment. It’s really awesome. Like, my new laptop has a huge flat multi-color screen instead of old small monochrome one one and has several orders more of power and memory! The only downside is that I have to learn a new version of an Universal Programming Language to stop being a mere “anykey-er”. Well, it could’ve been much worse. Also, transferred my log onto it.

16.04.419 AFE

The IDE is pretty cool. Graphic user interface, a lot of tools, automated version control, error detection system... Whoever has created it was a genius.

20.04.419 AFE

Today I saw a six-limbed walker MTU-2 robot fixing a some kind of a hazardous material leak in the Production Division sector, sumberged at least half-meter deep in the dangerous liquid. I swear, one of the arcanists (someone, named Izya), said something about how his team can create something much better and smarter with the help of arcane science. Whatever, I guess.

01.05.419 AFE

The first real work week is over. Worked with control systems of the nuclear reactor №3, which is still undergoing construction. Worked in the Surface Complex, helping bioscientists with automated climate-control systems for their above-ground labs. How can they stand so much Pokemon near them? Brr... Still, those “goggled” Alolan Dragon-Bugs (if I recall correctly, they are called “Flygons”) are cute... as cute as a 2 meter-long Pokemon can get. Ew.

04.05.419 AFE

Was working in the Physics Division sector today, fixing their local. Found guys using industrial microwave emitters, normally used for material processing, for heating up their lunches, as well as using autoclaves for pressure cooking. They also, apparently, use high-power vacuum chamber for drying their laundry. Weird. I’m scared to see, what the Production Division sector will hold...

05.05.419 AFE

My fears weren’t totally unjustified. In the Production Division sector, I’ve witnessed brawling MTU-2 robots (and those are 2-3 tons heavy!), using laser cutters to secretly engrave obscene words and phallus’ images into prototype devices, as well as, again, putting autoclaves, microwave emitters and some other devices to mundane use.

08.05.419 AFE

Worked in the Chemistry Division sector. I’m sure guys from the Lab 12 are up to something, since some of them often mention “distillation” and something, which is to be soon delivered to them from the Bioscience. How did I hear all that? Sometimes it’s great to be a simple maintenance man, who is just checking their computing equipment.

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Some worldbuilding for my fic - Soris region, part 1.

To put it short, Soris is a hellhole. Such a hellhole, in fact, that even Orre region looks like a paradise in comparison with Soris. The best way to describe Soris is ((USSR*Australia*Detroit)+PanzerDragoonWorld)^PokemonWorld. In fact, “Harpoon” and “Ripper” rounds (which, most of time, provide victim with quick and very painful death, or at least give it serious injuries) for firearms, the very possession of which will get you jailed for many years in other regions, are perfectly legal here and can be bought in any weapon store for a small price. And that’s for a good reason.

Even before the Ancient Soris Empire, Soris Pokemon were far from cooperative, while remaining as powerful as you think Pokemon would be, so, living in Soris was somewhat like living in the Australia. When the Soris Legendaries had gone onto rampage and Ancient Soris War began, a lot of nuclear, arcane and even biological weapons were deployed, all in attempts of humans to survive. While these attempts mostly succeeded (humans weren’t wiped out, after all, and Legendaries were killed), Soris was horribly devastated. Because of how often Pokemon in this war used dimensional-controlling abilities (Teleport and like this) and how much arcane equipment and weaponry were used to combat it (incident in Solncegorsk city, for instance, where Unown tried to take advantage of the war and establish a hold in the real world, only to be destroyed by the mix of missiles with arcane warheads, loaded with Dark-type energy, and plain tactical nuclear missiles), today’s interworld connections in Soris are... far from good. Teleport is considered a good method of suicide (because after teleporting, user of this move more often than not becomes a bloody paste) and “reflection” of the region in the Reverse World is so mangled and distorted, that Giratina, when she (its psychological gender here is closer to female) saw it, decided “Screw this!” and simply warded off this area instead of trying to restore it.

The native Pokemon of Soris are very dangerous. From even before Ancient Soris War, they, when having above-average power (Pseudo-Legendaries were normal), very rarely wanted to cooperate with humans, but, at least, weren’t very agressive either. After the Ancient Soris War, however, they, under the aftereffects of such a devastation, changed into something much, much more deadly (it’s still not clear, if those were effects of deaths of the Legendaries or simple aftereffects of biological, nuclear, chemical and arcane WMDs). Today, Ground-type Pokemon with nearly perfect camouflage, appetite of Snorlax, aggressiveness of wild Hydreigon and Pseudo-Legendary stats are nothing special in Soris and can be easily found (though “easily found” often means “you see it before it kills you”) outside of the fortified cities and corporate Enclaves and are considered low-level threat. Yes, Ancient Soris War was something special.

Thankfully, introduced Alolan Flygons - the only species of Pokemon in Soris that were truly and really cooperative towards humans and the ones with crazy adaptational abilities - changed too (they aren’t called “Spirit of Change” in both Alola and Soris for nothing!), allowing themselves to survive in Soris. Today, Soris Flygons can be distinguished from their Alolan relatives by different shape of wings (somewhat longer and sharper), slightly longer and horizontally-forked antennaes (which are crucial to their Aura abilities), minor Aura abilities (short-range communication, “radar” and “darkvision” of sort), more omnivorous digestive system (life in Soris is harsh), more power and even greater adaptational abilities, which allow them to thrive in pretty much any environment - from forever colds of Alberia to the volcanic regions of Camcilia to the swamps of the Far East to the sandy deserts of Goli and so on... They also constantly migrate from one part of Soris to another in order to keep their adaptational abilities sharp and evade fate which struck their Hoenn relatives (forever locking in one forme). However, domesticated Soris Flygons will stay with their master. Also, there are some less dangerous tamed creatures, which, however, are not true Pokemon and were genetically constructed by the Ancient Soris Empire.

The most often-used land transport in Soris are different kinds of armored vehicles. Pretty often, they are simply APC/IFVs in civilian painting (guns remain how they were), but sometimes they use so-called “mini-cruisers”, which are segmented caterpillar-driven armored vehicles with articulated hull and tank-grade weapons on the front segment (kinda like Bogie from “The Third: Girl with Blue Eyes” anime), because they offer pretty decent protection, or heavily-armored big trucks, often modded from old ICBM carriers. Also, armored trains (with very characteristic and prominent sharp pilots, which ensure nothing stands on the way of the train) are used heavily. On the Grey Sea coastal line, some people use jury-rigged (but really good) buggies with deployable soft paraglider wing, mechanized rudders and propeller, which allow them to traverse both ground and (limited) air. However, they aren’t suited for long-range travels and are require solid driving skills to survive in the event of encountering local Pokemon.

The aerial transport is dominated with different armored planes, helicopters and airships (the ones based on SaL-12 “Charizard” Assault Ship Aerodyne are among the most-used), though Soris Flygons dominate short-range travels.

The water transport... let’s just say people would like to traverse this path on ground or in air far better. Hovewer, when such a need arises, armored boats with some depth charges and heavy weapons are put to use. In more peaceful zones (which are rare ones), local gangs can utilise airboats with heavy machine guns and some laser-guided rocket launchers.

The weapon regulation laws are... wait, there are next to none such laws for weapon regulation inside of Soris. Because of how deep into time Soris history of firearms goes (some designs can be traced up to 1000 years in the past, considering all the times, when technology gets lost and rediscovered), there are some restrictions on exporting and importing guns, but almost nothing about trading and using them in the region itself. It is for a reason - without guns, Soris people barely have ways to defend themselves (not counting Soris Flygons, but hey, those insect-dragons can’t do everything! Normal, non-Soris Pokemon, don’t live too long in Soris for reasons yet to be found, while some Soris Pokemon can live outside of Soris with no problems, but prefer to stay in their home region, bar Soris Flygons - they feel themselves nice everywhere, because their adaptability is crazy), especially with how in last 100 years Soris Pokemon started to become even more agressive and powerful for reasons yet to be found and neutralized. In Soris, you can legally purchase pretty much any gun as soon as you are 21 (though you need to pass tests first. Also, handguns, including 13x55mm caliber heavy assault revolver and rifles, can be bought from 18 onwards) and use any ammo for it you want (excluding nuclear, chemical and biological ammo). Yes, you can get anti-tank missile launcher too, if you can afford it and qualify as skilled user. However, laws about reckless use of weapons (shooting people, shooting wild Pokemon without good cause, property damage and such) are still in place. Yes, Soris is a hellhole.

Because of the reasons above, life in Soris (except for the Tunguska, which is, for some strange reason, pretty similar to the normal region like Sinnoh, though not without noticable traces of Soris influence, especially at the border with “true” Soris) is... actually, not that hard. Yes, you need to be good with guns, know at least basics of first aid, be able to quickly repair tech and so on, but there are next to no influence of the Official World State (Pokemon Nation), absolutely zero danger of Legendaries going rampant (they were killed for real in the Ancient Soris War) and, while most of the non-corporate fortress-cities are being ran by shady figures, they are more-or-less safe and nice (because they are all in the same boat - better be nice with your subordinates, so they’ll be nice with you in return, than be evil to them and one night a psycho, created by your regimen, goes rampant and kills lots of people one way or another. There were such incidents, which have even resulted in destruction of several fortress-cities, including two ancient ones - the ones which were built just 200 years after the fall of the Ancient Soris Empire!). Of course, “Pokemon League” is not a thing here, but is it such a price for a chance to survive in this region?

A lot of Pokemon Hunters in other regions originate from Soris’ gangs. Most of them prefer to use firearms, just like they did back home.

Survival (mini-fic)

Even before she has broken the protective shell of her egg, she could feel something wrong in the world around her. Unlike what it was supposed to be, environmental Aura streams were heavily distorted and plain wrong. Still, she knew that she couldn’t remain here anymore, so, a single strike of organic-metal spike broke a thick calcium shell, allowing small Emmanation Pokemon to enter the outside world.

She looked at herself. Not that she was completely sure, but wasn’t it supposed to be three fingers on her hand, not a four and a fifth opposed one? Could the Aura of this place do something to her? And... why she was thinking so clear for something barely hatched?

Suddenly, her “dreadlocks” felt something angry. Something, that was very interested in freshly broken eggshell and sure, that, whatever has hatched from it, wasn’t far away and would make a pretty good snack. She tried to “fade out” her Aura and took a refuge in ruins, full of sharp metal parts and unsure floors, made of concrete (she was still not sure, where from she knew all that, not nothing of it mattered right now).

She passively Aura-”looked” at her previous resting place and saw a big Pokemon, which radiated hunger and agression, take a look at all sides (literally, because it had three big compound eyes) and then, angry, devour what little was left of eggshell and small flying Pokemon, which has just happened to get near at the wrong moment, while cutting the second one in half with a short swing of razor-barbed tongue. When he left, she carefully returned and, feeling very hungry, finished the agony of what was left of the flying Pokemon and made sure the body won’t go to waste.

At this moment, she couldn’t guess it, but it’ll become her style of life for several next years - find the nearly- or freshly dead Pokemon, cut some of them with self-invented Aura attack and quickly consume it, before real predators or scavengers come nearby. While she had fur color far from being camouflage one, she has managed to make up for it with Aura - she could let world’s streams flow right through her, preventing anyone, who relied on Aura in receiving what was happening around, from detecting her, while also silently using her inner Aura to distort the light, silence the sounds and nullify the smells. She became the stealthiest being in this part of world.

Today was the day she got busted.

Despite all her Aura-based cloaking, despite all of her stealth attemps, one of the local Pokemon has managed to find out about her and, what was the worst, find her.

Now it was chasing her.

Her left leg hurt really bad from getting chemical burn from one of the spits. Because how it wasn’t coagulating, it was, probably, base, instead of acid (she never bothered to think about where from she was getting all of this knowledge - it sorta just happened to somehow get into her head in the least apropriate times). She knew she would be able to use Aura to heal it later, but right now, she couldn’t do a thing about it.

Now, she has managed to drive this to unfinished abandoned building, complete with metal sticks sticking out of walls and just laying here and there.

Suddenly, she tripped on one of those sticks and fell over, quickly trying to get back standing. She succeeded, but situation had already got from “bad” to “really bad”. 

Riolu saw, how a big, angry and strong Pokemon leaps at her, opening a huge maw with lots of sharp teeth, and, not understanding, what she’s doing, rose a big metal stick above her head, while closing eyes and cutting herself from Aura reception.

A monstrous squeak and dying roar of pain nearly destroyed her ears, but, somehow, she was still alive. After waiting for several more seconds, she slowly opened her eyes and looked at what have just happened.

The Pokemon, which wanted to eat her, jumped straight at the thin metal stick and got skewered on it. From what she could tell, he jumped just right to get his heart pierced, so it was of no wonder he died so quickly.

She could feel something strange, something building up in her. The death of this monster - the same one which has nearly killed her several years ago - made her feel some sort of a relieve and... Pride, for what she has done?

On this thought, she felt suddenly getting overwhelmed with some sort of a light, her body getting warped and changed. When it was over, she looked herself over, noticing the dense yellow fur and bio-metallic spike on chest, muzzle getting sharper, feeling the second set of Aura sensors, more power... and a huge hunger. The food was right here, impaled on the metal stick. After so many years of scavenging, she simply couldn’t let such a great fresh carcass go to waste.

After the meal time was over, she noticed something strange in herself. A strange emmanation, which have been present in her since her hatching here, has finally made it’s presence clear. It was dark, cruel, calculative, remorseless... but it was exactly what she needed to survive here, so, she completely embraced it.

Before finally leaving this place, she used several of her “Aura Cut” attacks to chop herself a decent part of this metal stick (”rebar”, as the name for it has suddenly appeared in her mind) and sharpen one of the ends of it. She couldn’t explain, but she felt it’ll help her great time in the future. She couldn’t help but wonder, why does it fit in her five-fingered hand so well.

A quick Aura-accelerated charge with rebar set before her - and prey’s heart gets pierced, ending the fight before it had ever began. A second decisive strike - and it’s mate dies with severed spinal cord. Since she has become Lucario, she finally stopped being a mere scavenger and became quite a death player here herself. While she still was not an apex predator here, she haven’t lost her stealth skills (in fact, she has continued at ever-enhancing them) and always knew when to fold her plans. However, she still never risked approaching groups of humans with firearms. While human bodies were fragile and could be destroyed with aa single maxed-out Aura Sphere or similar attack, their guns, loaded with something they called “Ripper rounds”, could quickly (and very painfully) kill most of the local Pokemon. Attacking humans was just not worth it, especially after how they’ve firebombed a place from air, after one of the mightiest Pokemon here had killed fifty humans.

She knew it was a trap.

Somehow, whoever stood behind those Pokemon and co-ordinated their doings, has lured her into this very narrow valley and locked her in it.

She stood proud, clenching the sharpened rebar in her left hand. Lucario knew, that it may be not of much use here, but she wanted to be ready to give her all.

Suddenly, she felt a human presence getting stronger behind them. It definitely was a woman, which, for some strange reason, wanted to see the fight with her own eyes (not without backing herself up with some Protects, several additional Pokemon guards and a firearm, of course).

She concentrated her Aura sense on this human woman... and saw something very dark in her soul. This darkness, while different from the one which gave the Lucario her power, was still somewhat familiar. This darkness brought understanding. There was no use in fight, because like has no need to fight like.

- I surrender, - sent a peaceful Aura message Lucario, while slowly lowering the rebar. - I sense no need in fight.

- Why is that? - asked human woman in somewhat defiant voice, but deep inside, the dark power in her soul became interested.

- Because you bear darkness, as do I. Even if they are different, like does not need to fight like. I think we can achieve something greater if we allow our darknesses to work together.

- Hm. You tell truth. Readings of my sensors tell me, that you are different from the normal Lucarios and your abilities are almost on par of those of the low-level Legendaries. Do you know, why is that?

- The darkness of this land has touched me. Changed me. Gave me the bliss of power, - replied Lucario, feeling some strange pride rising in herself.

- Yeah, you are the only introduced Pokemon I know who has managed to survive on border between Tunguska and real Soris, - said the human woman. - So, to Pokeball stage we go?

- I do not know what do you mean, but I’m ready, - replied Lucario, seeing, how human tosses the small spherical device with strange markings towards her, how this device opens, how her body slowly, but painlessly, gets warped and twisted in all ways possible and some, that are essentially impossible, then everything settles down and calms, then disturbance arises again - and she stands before human once more.

- Absolutely no resistance! - wondered human, looking at Lucario.

- Why should I resist something, that will allow me to unite my path with other bearer of darkness and help me achieve something greater? - calmly asked her Aura Pokemon.

- I’m happy about it, actually. So, do you understand, that from now onwards, you will obey all of my orders?

- I most certainly do.

- So the darkness in our souls will become one and open a path to something greater?

- Absolutely.

-... You’re the strangest Pokemon I’ve ever met. Anyway, nice to get you in my team. I assign you tactical designation “Blue Rapier”.

- I thank you for that. And... how should I call you? Mist...

- No, not this crap! - objected human, then gave the Lucario an evil twisted smirk. - Simpy “K” or “Commander” would suffice.

Re-entry (mini-fic)

Six months.

For six months already crew of the “Space Lab Two” was working on pure inertia.

Because Soris Empire fell.

Their families, friends, relatives, co-workers - they were no more.

Killed by the rampant Pokemon, irradiated to death, evaporated in the giant thermonuclear blasts - it did not matter.

The only thing that mattered now was the supplies.

And they were running low.

- Captain, we’ve already overshot our goal by two months, - said the physicist, floating from one wall of the command module to another. - As for now, we have one week at most, then air reprocessors won’t hold anymore and will most likely fail - I told we needed to replace them three launches ago. Does anyone there want to suffocate to death?

- To be honest... - started the biologist.

- To flak with this pessimism, - harshly said the captain. - There are still people down there, so we may as well as try to get down and try to survive alongside them. Our death up there will be no use to anyone!

- Well, you’re top officer here, so, as you wish, - responded the pilot. - However, there are no infrastructure left to meet us, so, we have to de-orbit our return vehicle in such a way, so we’ll land somewhere near the survivors.

- Do you think it’s such a big problem? - asked physicist. - Even if we, for some reason, won’t use our own surveillance telescopes, we still can communicate with the recon satellite network and get all data we want from them, so, finding the good landing place shouldn’t be that hard. Re-entering the atmosphere and landing, however...

- I can work on that, - said the pilot. - Of course, autopilot shall do most of the job, but, in the event of something, we need to be sure we’ll actually land our and not commence unplanned lithobreaking. Even if our return vehicle is, basically, renamed... 

- Work on it tomorrow. Right now, everyone goes into gravity wheels and takes a nice, long sleep. We need to calculate how to bring twenty-five humans back to Earth safely. We need to get everything ready for it. We will not be able to properly do it in such an exhausted state, so, put these caffeine drinks away and go snore a bit.

-... So, deorbiting at this points shall be fine, - murmured the captain, plotting the course for the return vehicle. - The secondary data pod shall be ejected at this point and then station will commence transfer to the junkyard orbit. Vasilyev - had you located the survivors enclaves?

- Yes, I’ve had, you can see them here, - responded the crewmember, marking several points at main display. - As you can see, we can correct our landing course in the atmosphere itself, so, detaching the return vehicle from the station here shall be fine enough. Also, all of the “Overlord of Skies”-class airships have been destroyed, the most recent one - “Researcher-2″ - crashing in Kalos, and, considering the radiation scans, because of some sort of a reactor failure. It’s good thing satellite network is still kicking.

- Not so good, - said communications operator. - We can’t manually order heavy recon and repeater satellites to fire the engines and transfer themselves to graveyard orbits.

- Do you think...

- Yes. If something goes wrong, satellites will de-orbit and disintegrate upon re-entering atmosphere. And, as you remember, they are powered by the nuclear fission reactors...

- Just like the our station now, since the parabolic mirror was destroyed. Well, shouldn’t they fire engines if automatics onboard detect something going wrong with reactor, such as meltdown or running low on fuel?

- They should, and they also should auto-correct orbit, but, if system goes offline or, what’s even worse, nuts, we’ll have radioactive nuclear fuel sprayed across the world.

- But ISF9 automatics rarely, if ever, fail, - taped the captain, trying to prevent panic. - Besides, it’s not like we can do something about it, so let’s just hope for the best. What about our return vehicle?

- Good, comrade captain. After some tweaking, according to the pre-written instruction for that exact kind of situation - apparently, our guys in FCC were quite paranoid - we’ve modified interior of the lenticular return vehicle to be able to safely house all twenty-five peoples for entirety of return and landing procedures. A bit cramped, but better that, than nothing. What we’ll do with normal 3-seated return pods, though?

- They’ll stay here. After all, there’s no infrastructure left for retrieval operations. the LRV can guide where it lands pretty good, these can’t.

- Goodbye, “Space Lab Two”. We will greatly miss you, - said the pilot, looking in the return vehicle’s main window. The space station, jewel in crown of the Empire’s space program, was left by it’s crew forever and was programmed to eject an emergency data pod at the marker of the landed return vehicle, so knowledge will be preserved. - Proceeding as normal, four hours until touchdown.

- Acknowledged - replied physicist, still thinking about the fate of the space station. - Station will fire engines and transfer to the graveyard orbit in ten orbital periods, secondary data pod ejection will be commenced in three periods.

- Good, - said captain. - Let’s hope this snake-dragon-missile-thing - the green one...

- It’s called “Rayquaza”, comrade captain, - taped the biologist.

- Whatever. So, let’s hope it does not commence orbital interception of our lenticular return vehicle.

- And it applies to our station and satellites too, - grunted comm operator, looking at the map with locations of recon and repeater satellites. - I’m sure no one will like reactor’s active zone dispersed all across the region...

The streamlined lenticular return vehicle fired the small frontal engines and slowly sailed away from the huge station, which has already stopped rotation of the giant centrifugal gravity wheels. then turned and fired main thrusters, decelerating and starting the atmospheric re-entry sequence, while the Space Lab Two continued to silently perish, deactivating life support systems, which were not needed anymore, one after another, and preparing to shut down the reactor as soon as it gets to the graveyard orbit.

- Mom, you’ve told me, that seven years ago, our village’s elder died upon gazing at the shooting star and said some strange words. What did he say?

- Something like “recon”, “re-entry”, “disintegrating” and “all across the...”, upon saying which he died.

- What did it mean?

- Who knows, dear, who knows. After all, he came from the time, when humans made great things, discovered the basis of life itself, cracked the uncrackable and even flew beyond the skies...

Present (mini-fic)

- How much more? - asked military engineer his comrade, continuing to walk upstairs.

- Ten more stories and that’ll be it, - responded the grenadier. - By the way, do you know, what the flak this crystalline shit is? It’s nearly swallowed the city! Good thing we still have this skyscraper far enough from the target to install lased designator on and be sure it wont go down after the strike, bad - our Flygons are no more...

- About those crystals - brainheads said something about psychics, living sigils and such, but the only thing concerning me is how we will deal with this. As if these flakkers rampages weren’t enough... Now we also have to deal with some Johto weirdass crap. Wait, did you hear that?

- “Stop right away!”, in some ghostly voice? I did, - said the grenadier, readying his revolver grenade launcher. - Whatever it is, we still have our mission. Is laser designator ready?

- Ready, ready. I still wonder, how Givi has managed to modify old laser rangefinder into a designator for missiles?

- The same way, as you’ve called them, “brainheads” modified weather rockets into some kind of a ballistic missiles. By the way, WTF is loaded into their warheads?

- Some arcane... nuke... whatever it is, it’s flakkin’ complicated. I do remember they use both nuclear fission and something arcane. Six missiles shall be enough to carry a decent payload.

- Agreed. Did you see that? - whispered soldier, quickly turning and shooting dangerous Pokemon with buckshot charge.

- Flakkin’ illusion, - barked engineer, seeing, how the figure dissipated after being hit. - Let’s hurry up, these crystalline shits are psychic and growing out of control!

- Flak, I’m running low on buckshots, - said grenadier, placing the grenade launcher on his back and taking the SMG into his hands. - And I don’t wanna get ourselves killed with shockwaves or waste corrosive munition on phantoms!

- Do your best, ‘cause these flakkers can actually attack now, - responded engineer, wiping blood from his eybrow. Mere seconds ago, a huge phantom attacked him and nearly slashed his neck open with pseudo-material claw. Thankfully, several bullets or a single buckshot grenade launcher charge were able to make them dissipate, but sheer ease, with which these phantoms were appearing, put survival of two soldiers and mission success under question.

-There we are, - happily said grenadier, reloading his primary weapon. - Zheka - put this flakkin’ designator down and lase the target.

- Here it goes, - whispered engineer, deploying the device and flipping the switch on it. - Givi, Ashot, Alexei - target’s being lased, how’s secondary radio guidance signal?

- Crystal clear! Five more minutes - and it’ll be very hot at the impact point! Evacuate and get ready to watch the fireworks!

- Evacuation impossible, foe possesses psychic abilities, can destroy designator. Requesting permission to hold on and protect designator until missiles fly.

-... Permission granted. Guys, try to make out of it alive.

- We’ll try our best, but no guaranties, except for providing guidance. Foe has some great psychic powers.

- Just how much more of them? - roared the grenadier, firing another HE grenade at the group of phantom Pokemon. - Zheka - hang in there, I’ll try to hold’em in the corridor!

- OK, Sasha! So, flakkers, do you think humans’ll go down easily?! SUCK ON MY HOLLOWPOINT BULLETS!!! - screamed engineer, letting his assault rifle loose on the phantoms. While he succeeded in destroying most of them, one has still managed to get in close and nearly cut him in two. While his attempt has mostly failed, Yevgeniy still got a huge deep slash across his chest, in addition to all of the previous wounds. - Shit...

Engineer, having no more power to stand upright, collapsed, but dragged himself near the laser designator and braced for firing his rifle from this position.

- Sanya, Zheka, here it goes! Get ready to receive the present! - suddenly sounded happy Givi’s voice from the radio.

- Flakkin’ finally! - whispered the bleeding soldier, looking at the window and seeing, how six yellow dots appeared near the horizon and started to speed to the designated point. Mere minute after, these dots revealed themselves to be ballistic missiles, three of which were going to target significantly faster, than the rest. Engineer saw, how these missiles exploded just before phantom Pokemon and crystalline storm would be able to intercept them and released a titanic amount of arcane Dark-type energy, causing phantoms to vanish and crystalline matter to darken and fall into dust.

- Here goes the second wave - cackled the grenadier, watching, how remaining three missiles flew to the lased point and exploded in the storm of atomic fire, hotter than hundreds of Magcargos and brighter than thousands of suns.

- Good thing we have those helmets and goggles. - said Yevgeniy, seeing his comrade ducking alongside him under the window to avoid getting burned by the intense light. - Just how much kaboom they’ve managed to put in them?

- From what it looks like, 50 kilotons or so per missile. By the way, Zhek, what do you think will kill us first - wounds or radiaton sickness?

- Well, judging from how close we were to explosions, how the building has somehow managed to hold solidly and protect us from overpressure wave and how my rad-meter is fried, my bet’s on the radiation sickness. Also, how we didn’t die from so much radiation instanly?

- Who knows. I don’t think we will be able to get to the brainheads in time to ask them, and our radio is fried as well. OK, now the target’s being... - grenadier peered at the window, seeing nothing more than boiling magma-like mass and no traces of crystals, phantoms or any Pokemon for that matter, - completely annihilated and us being in less than two days from death, how about a last game of preferans? I’ve got some cards in my pocket!

- OK, hand’em over! - laughed engineer, taking cards in his hands.

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Ancient Soris Empire, part 4.

The Imperial Capital City’s name was Pervorechensk. Set on the Surava river, this city was pretty much shining jewel in the Imperial crown.

In the days of Empire’s glory, Pervorechensk was the most advanced city not just in the Soris region, but in the entire world. Powered by the local solar, wind turbine, hydroelectric and nuclear powerplants, surrounded by the S-Alloy Wall (yes, it was really called so), having self-sustainance ability, this city was pretty much small empire inside of the Soris Empire.

This city was well-known across the Empire not only as a capital, but also as a main construction and repair site of the heavy airships. Most of the “Overlord of Skies”-class nuclear-powered rigid-hull hydrogen dirigibles, including even the Emperor’s personal one, were built here. In fact, it was the first city in which nuclear energy was harnessed for the first time in human history too!

The Pervorechensk was also the first (and, for more than 2500 years, only) city, in which arcane science devices were put to wide use. Of course, it was planned to expand the arcane machinery usage to entire Empire, but, unfortunately, it fell before it was possible.

The most used arcane science systems were arcane computers, created by the Izya’s and Budulai’s cooperation and manufactured in the Imperial Science Facility 9 experimental factory. There were also some non-sentient arcane robots, which were intended to replace old non-arcane ones.

Thanks to nuclear powerplants and arcane machinery, Pervorechensk wasn’t defenceless, when it comes to agressive defence. Instead of creating the flying fortress, like the Nikola did (levitators were just being developed, when the Imperial Science Facility 9 had undergone the emergency conservation and, shortly after, Empire fell), Soris engineers put several turreted heavy rapid-fire arcane energy cannons with anti-air capacity on the Wall. During the Legendaries rampage, these cannons had proven themselves quite useful, because they’ve allowed Pervorechensk to endure three major attacks, before they’ve got destroyed.

The Emperor’s Palace was... strange. Because of how Soris Empire was developing over time and because of the royalties tastes in architecture, the Palace was looking like some weird hybrid between the, well, palace (similar to the real Winter Palace), atompunk skyscraper (like the Half-Life 2 Beta Citadel, “clamp” version) and an airport along with airship dock. It even featured several rapid-firing arcane energy cannons, similar to those on the Wall, on it’s own, and had a powerful nuclear fission reactor inside. Yes, this complex was far from the usual palace, but hey, it’s Ancient Soris Empire we’re speaking about!

During the Legendares rampage, the Pervorechensk city was the last to fall. Thanks to arcane energy cannons, repulsor arcane science devices and decent self-defence military, it was a very tough nut to crack. Of course, eventually, both the Palace and the city were ravaged by these Legendaries, but it has proven to be a trap - when the Legendaries were too busy destroying the previously-magnificent city of technological wonders to avenge the time they wasted on trying to destroy the defence, several survived cargo planes, loaded with very powerful nukes, took a kamikaze course and synchro-detonated charges when they were in optimal range. The resulting 55 megaton explosions killed these Legendaries for good while also turning remnants of the city into a pretty much irradiated boiling mass of metal and glass. Even after more than 3000 years, this zone still bears the old scars.

However, the last part does not apply to the Shift-verse, where the Empire, instead of Ancient Soris War, got time-shifted 3100 years ahead and, therefore, was never destroyed and even prospered in the new time.

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Ancient Soris Empire, part 3.

The Imperial Science Facility 9 had a very wide range of researches, ranging from biology to chemistry to physics to the arcane science to many others.

The main arcane science research team was under the rule of Dr. Jelena Groisman. This team was, officially, in charge of research and development of the dimensional-controlling arcane science devices, such as tseryobla and portal generator, but, in fact, was making loads of different arcane systems, claiming that they were crucial to their work. Dr. Pobegov knew this, but did nothing about it, because it was way too useful fo the Facility and Empire.

The leading arcane scientist in this team was Izya Maler, who also was the creator of the Chugun and the inventor of the IZh-type arcane science device, which allowed to create some of the more advanced arcane stuff, like the, again, mechanical Pokemon, arcane computing systems (very useful for controlling tseryoblas and portal generators), arcane energy batteries (the most cheap of which were capable of holding up to three megawatts of electrical equivalent in 1000 cm3 battery) and such. The most advanced IZh device was ID-01, which was installed into Chugun and was a pretty much Ancient Soris Empire’s counterpart to a much later Azoth Kingdom’s Soul Heart.

The second leading scientist was Budulai Trens. While having funny accent and somewhat strange manners, this guy was one of the best tseryobla operators and a great computer master, thanks to whom a lot of the facility’s systems became automated, though not without Izya’s help, because Maler was the one who’ve provided best arcane hardware to the Trens. By the way, Trens and Maler were best friends.

Dr. Pobegov was the director of this facility. While he did have a degree in arcane science, he mostly specialized in biology and medicine - specificial, surgery. His favorite, even if joking, threat was to threaten to perform a skull trepanation and subsequent lobotomy.

(IZh comes from “Iskusstvennaya Zhizn” - “Artificial Life”, ID comes from “Iskusstvennaya Dusha” - “Artificial Soul”. Only the latter type of the arcane science device was able to gain true sentience and qualify as a mechanical lifeform.)

Like you would’ve guessed, arcane science devices in the Facility weren’t limited to technical equipment only. One of the biggest achievement of Budulai and Izya’s cooperation was invention of the arcane science-based computers. These machines had enabled facility to store tremendous amounts of data in small volumes, as well as process them at great speeds (facility’s mainframes were roughly comparable to real supercomputers of later 200X - early 201X). These arcane machines were originally created for just this facility, but, as soon as they’ve proved their worth, units of the same type were installed in the ISF8. Much more of them were planned to produce and mount in the big governmental and not only institutions, but, unfortunately, Empire fell before it was done. However, all of the data from the ISF8 was copied into ISF9′s memory storage and still remains in it, awaiting either reawakening and restoration of the facility or its complete destruction.

One of the most well-known arcane devices in this facility, on par with tseryobla, was main arcane energy irradiation chamber. In fact, it was pretty simple: isolated chamber, in one of the walls of which lots of arcane energy emitters, configured to emit life energy, are installed, and two holders - for tissue sample and for template Stone (nullified Thunderstones, most of the time). When this machine is activated, focused stream of life energy passes through the tissue sample and irradiates template Stone, more often than not creating the Mega Stone or a Key Stone (if human tissue was used during the experiment). Yes, Ancient Soris Empire has discovered Mega Evolution even before AZ has constructed his Ultimate Weapon. Besides performing Mega-Evo experiments, this chamber, as well as smaller chambers of same type, was used to create some of the arcane science machine parts, like the arcane computing circuits. 

Also, all tries to create Flygonite for the Alolan Flygons, beloved by Soris people, have totally failed, because all of the template Stones fell apart into the dust after the irradiation procedure. Through the study of results, it was found out, that Flygon's Mega-Evo abilities are completely replaced by the signature adaptational ability, so, in some sense, Flygons are almost always Mega - each of the weather condition-triggered forms is very similar to the Mega-Evolution in the biological sense, though not so radical and, because of this, able to stay for as long as needed with no side effects.

All of the biological research laboratories have Emergency Biological Sterilization Systems, which were created and installed for one purpose - to kill everything in room, when fired, by the means of mixed arcane and electromagnetic radiation pulses, which had enough power to not just kill, but pretty much disintegrate rogue specimen on the cellular level. As a nice bonus, the discharge itself also has an effect, similar to the Chandelure’s flame, which prevents ghosts of killed by it from ever forming and tampering with laboratory’s work. If some ghost is hit with the discharge, it gets completely destroyed.

In addition, all laboratories had supply of different toxic gases and hermetically-sealing vents and doors, so, in the event of emergency, they could’ve been easily turned into a gas chambers for escaped specimen, when firing Emergency Biological Sterilization System was not the best solution, like if lab was low on power (Emergency Biological Sterilization System is quite a power hog, almost on par with irradiation chamber). One of the most used gases were hydrogen cyanide, phosgene (byproducts of the experimental chemical factory, which was housed in the ISF9 too) and, in high-level labs, VX gas (according to the official documents, “experimental neural agent”). However, during the facility’s conservation procedures, entire supply of poisonous gases was destroyed to prevent potential dangerous leakages.

(I’ve based the first system on Emergency Tesla Discharge/Biological Sterilization System from the Black Mesa. The Soris scientists, knowing, what can rogue Pokemon do, especially a psychic one, didn’t want to get killed when specimen breaks out, so, they’ve ordered to shield the labs against Pokemon attacks and install the “sterilizers”. Yes, Mewtwo incident woud’ve been over in matter of seconds, if the New Island Lab had this kind of system. Same comes for the gassing system - they’d prefer death of a specimen over their own.).

Of course, no facility of such level can be without internal advertisment. The most prominent was the series “The future is now, thanks to arcane science!”, created by Dr. Groisman and showing various arcane scientific achievements, ranging from tseryobla to small arcane-based portable computers (which were test models, had proved themselves great in the facility and were scheduled for mass production in following years, though, unfortunately, it did not happen because of Legendaries rampage and fall of the Empire) to Chugun (who was highly praised by both arcane science R&D and repair teams of the facility) to other arcane technology achievements. If Clemont ever had somehow managed to visit this facility in time of its true glory, he could’ve passed out from happiness.

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Ancient Soris Empire, part 2.

The Ancient Soris Empire, unlike most of the empires, depicted in the fiction, wasn’t really into conquest, but, rather, into science and exploration. While still moderately big (entire Soris region), it wasn’t that big, but it did have some colonies outside of the Empire, although they were research-centered and dependant on the parent-state.

The most well-known Empire’s machine, almost a sign of hope for colonies, was “Overlord of Skies”-class nuclear powered rigid-hull hydrogen dirigible.

(Image taken from soviet “Энциклопедический словарь юного техника” book, although in this verse, dirigible is lifted by hydrogen instead of helium and has a bigger cargo and passenger bays)

This class of airships could easily provide supplies for colonies in any part of the world, as well as transport almost any kind of cargo, including even small nuclear powerplants for polar colonies. Powered by liquid metal-cooled nuclear fission reactor, they had fuel autonomy of several dozens of years, as well as ability to be, in fact, flying scientific colonies for many kind of researches: Pokemon migration surveillance, atmospheric research and such. Also, several years after the Alola Expedition, in addition to the onboard helicopter and plane, these airships usually had several Alolan Flygons, because: 1) they were that beloved by the Soris people (a Pokemon which is willing to cooperate with humans, unlike the Soris native Pokemon); 2) they didn’t consume any hydrogen fuel, unlike the copter or plane, and food for them wasn’t that much of issue; 3) they were better in in allowing researchers to observe Pokemon without disturbing them - Flygon is much more quiet than a heli; 4) they were sorta like companions for humans in long journeys for science.

Unfortunately, when the Soris Empire fell, all of these majestic airships were destroyed, sooner or later. “Researcher-2”, which has escaped Soris and was travelling to one of the far colonies, carrying copies of the newest arcane science discoveries, as well as some tech supplies, has suffered a major reactor meltdown (because someone onboard has failed both mechanics and aerodynamics classes, so he thought, that overriding all of the safeties and pushing the already maxed-out reactor even further will increase the speed of airship) and crashed in the Kalos, though without huge explosion (emergency hydrogen dump-and-burn system has worked well), but everyone onboard has suffered insane radiation poisoning and died shortly after. Skip a little, AZ comes down and, understanding, that there’s something wrong about this wreck, orders his men to scout the remnants and bring anything useful to him. Several very bloody battles with an activated combatron class arcane tech-based assault robot later, irradiated Golurk - sole survivor from one of the many scouting groups, which has finally managed to bring the combatron down - brings down an unlocked safe, which contains arcane science documentation and, soon after, next group manages to transport some of the containers with advanced stuff to their king. Because AZ, roughly a decade ago, hanged out with several Soris arcane tech researchers (from the Soris Empire’s Kalos research base), he was able to understand Soris language and some of the more complicated stuff in these documents, so, Ancient Kalos Kingdom put some of the arcane technology to use. However, as you can remember, the most well-known Kingdom’s arcane science-based device was the Ultimate Weapon, after a single use of which arcane science was forgotten for 2500 years, until the Nikola from the Azoth Kingdom had independently re-discovered a basic principles behind it and developed arcane devices once more.

The Ancient Soris Empire has even had a space program, but, unfortunately, they were only able to launch so many satellites, automated nuclear-powered interplanetary probe and two “Space Lab”-class space stations, first of which was similar to the real “Skylab”, while the second one resembled something closer to ISS, if it was bigger, nuclear and solar powered, had two contra-rotating gravity wheels, several normal escape pods and dock for the lenticular return vehicle, before the fall, all of which had de-orbited and burned during the re-entry in following years. There were plans to produce arcane science-based machines, ranging from a simple arcane-tech probes to full-scale mechanical Pokemon, for advanced deep space exploration, but, sadly, it has remained in plans only.

However, the last part does not apply to the Shift-verse, where the Empire, instead of Ancient Soris War, got time-shifted 3100 years ahead and, therefore, was never destroyed and even prospered in the new time.

Some worldbuilding for my fic - Ancient Soris Empire, part 1.

More than 3000 years ago, in the Soris region, there was a great Soris Empire.

Thanks to lack of Apricorns in Soris and low cooperativeness of local Pokemon, as well as abundance of easily-acessed metals and fossil and fissil fuels, Soris people took a technological way of development. Several centuries later, a Soris Empire springs into existence.

Unlike what you will think, this empire, at it’s peak, was pretty diesel/atompunk heavy and most of the electronics were based on higly-advanced vacuum tube technology, though transistors and arcane science devices started to slip in near the end of the empire. They also had nuclear-powered transport, including icebreakers, submarines and even rigid-hull hydrogen-lifted dirigibles!

The single most beloved Pokemon species in the later Soris Empire was introduced Alolan Flygon line, thanks to their weather-adaptational ability (like this of Castform) and great cooperativeness towards humans. Nowadays, these dragons has somewhat diverged from the original line and became Soris Flygons, which, while retaining abilities of their Alolan ancestors, have also gained minor Aura abilities (which they use to locate their prey and as a darkvision of sort) and are constantly migrating from one part of Soris region to another (however, they do this only in small herds, so each part will have some Flygons coming in, some staying and some coming out), so they will not get stuck in one form, like the Hoenn Flygons did. The most prominent changes of Soris Flygons are longer antennaes, which are crucial in Aura reception and are forked in two roughly in the middle, the lower part of antennae being shorter than a upper one, slightly different shape of wings and, surprisingly, more omnivorous digestive system, because such is life in Soris - hard and complicated.

These cute, but powerful insect-dragons were the reason why, after the fall of Soris Empire and subsequent loss of technology, humans has managed to survive in this region and, eventually, rebuild.

One of the greatest achievements of the Empire were Imperial Science Facilites, which were researching lots of things - physics, genetics, chemistry and so on. The main jewel in this crown was Imperial Science Facility 9 - the single biggest and most powerful of this line, which also had early arcane science as a main direction of the research, although not the only. More than 90% of this base were located deep underground to prevent outbreaks and protect it against attacks, when the ground had only a Bioscience Division’s surface labs (mostly for studying extraregional Pokemon), Astronomical Dome, material sorting and transport complexes, as well as some recreational sub-facilities.

This facility was constructed to be self-sustainable and able to survive for centuries without maintenance, if properly conserved. Because of this, the main energy source of this facility was complex of closed-circuit geothermal reactors, which could provide up to 1200MW of electricity and were cooled by the oceanic water, which was pumped from pretty far away, to reduce chances of detecting the facility itself. The secondary energy sources were several nuclear fission reactors, capable of providing up to 900MW each, although two of them were mostly used to empower some of the science equipment directly.

One of the main energy hogs in this facility, as well as in Imperial Science Facility 8, was early arcane science equipment, especially irradiation chamber (in which first Mega Stones and some artificial Evo Stones ever were created) and tseryobla (teleportation device. Why it was named so? Even creators, when they were alive, could barely remember it, because all memories of the night when it happened were way too obscured by the alcohol fumes). One of the most important devices, which were crucial to functioning of the rest of arcane science equipment, were highly advanced two-way energy converters, which could not only turn Pokemon life energy into electricity (like Devon Inc. and some of the Nikola’s devices did), but turn electricity into life energy as well! Because of these converters and abundance of electrical energy (thanks to geothermal and nuclear reactors), facility had no need to use Pokemon as a “fuel”, so, no “Powered by a Forsaken Child” for you! After the fall of the Empire, data on how to create and maintain these converters, as well as most of the converters themselves, was lost, and the only surviving units and documentation are in the sealed away ISF9, which is pretty much guaranteed to finally fall apart in this century. Chances of this facility, and, because of it, technology getting re-discovered and restored are... slim, at best.

It was also the facility in which first artificial mechanical pokemon ever was created. Constructed by one of the leading arcane scientists and named “Chugun” (”Cast-iron”), this guy (psychological gender of the Chugun is male) quickly became intergral part of the personel, because he was truly great at task he was created to do - repairing and maintaining things. Having powerful and resilient body, which was also very easy to repair and modify, Chugun was always ready for performing different jobs - from helping planting tunneling explosives to saving people from the gassed or burning room to working in the operating reactor pool to hermetizing steam mains to soldering electronics and so on. In fact, he was beloved so much, that when one of the revisors came to this facility and ordered to dismantle Chugun, because he thought of him as too dangerous, Dr. Pobegov, which was in charge of the Imperial Science Facility 9, threatened to perform a skull trepanation and subsequent lobotomy on the revisor if he does not shut up. When this revisor reported this to the Emperor, he got following answer: “Imperial Science Facility 9 reports directly to me. You were sent to it to find a problems and report them, not to express your opinions left and right. In fact, I think Dr. Pobegov was right about what to do with you.”

Chugun was also the first sentient, on whom tseryobla was tested, and he has volunteered for this! Of course, some tests were performed beforehand on non-sentients (lab Ratattas, heh), but most of the time, after the tests, workers had to wash entire test lab out of bloody pulp, which was sprayed everywhere. Thankfuly, during the test with Chugun, when tseryobla malfunctioned (yet again), there was only teleport-throwing in random places, including even the Reverse World (Giratina was quite surprised, when she saw strangely-looking glowing mechanical Pokemon briefly appearing and, before she even had a chance to finish her question, vanishing again), for five hours (but for Chugun, it was like five years, though he knew what he has volunteered for), after which, however, entire tseryobla crew was hospitalized because of excessive arcane energy exposure. Thankfully, amount of data, gathered in this experiment, was more than worth it, because it finally allowed to find a safe settings for tseryobla and ensure safe teleportations. Moreover - the required data was gathered in less than an a hour, and the rest of the time was dedicated to stabilizing Chugun in the ISF9′s tseryobla and safely extracting him from the teleportational “vortex”, because if they’ve simply pulled the plug, he would’ve got scattered across the teleportation places - all of them. As you can see from it, they’ve really held him in high regard.

When the Empire was at it’s last days, the ISF9 had undergone conservation procedures and Chugun was tasked with maintaining it until someone comes. For more than a 3000 years he was fulfilling his duty, but now, fuel for nuclear reactors was burned off ages ago, replacements are almost ceased to be, so he is forced to cannibalize whatever he can from reserve systems to maintain main ones in (barely) working condition, the main steam turbine complex, which provides power to the base, has lots of leakages, which he barely manages to patch... To put it in short, right now, base can survive no more than a fifty years on remaining reserves. Chugun understands it, but still continues to do everything he can, hoping, that one day, someone will excavate buried entrances to the facility and restore it to it’s full glory.

However, the last part does not apply to the Shift-verse, where the Empire, instead of Ancient Soris War, got time-shifted 3100 years ahead and, therefore, was never destroyed and even prospered in the new time.

(Funny fact - initially, fic Chugun was created after watching humoristic re-dub of Half-Life 2, called Kayf-Life 2, where Alyx’s Dog robot became, well, Chugun, which was originally created for straightening rails, but, thanks to faulty AI, has escaped from the factory and took refuge in the Budulai’s illegal undeground workshop. Also, Kayf-Life’s Chugun was a champion in throwing trash bins at the distant moving targets, but got disqualified after he has thrown one of the bins at the referee. What’s this all about - after I’ve thought of Chugun, my “train” of ideas has gone like this:

“So, mechanical Pokemon, which looks like it was assembled from the junk, but is pretty powerful and reliable and needs to be called Chugun. How to write it in? Hm, what about Russia-like region? Pretty good idea, actually, but it needs some non-obvious name. Riso? No. Rosi? Definitely no! Soris? That’s great! Hey, but nowadays, no one manufactures Pokemon like this, so, it needs to be ancient! Yes, ancient arcane science Soris mechanical Pokemon. That’s good. But just how ancient? Hm, let’s see... The first traces of arcane science originate back to Ancient Kalos War, AZ had some cool arcane tech... So, more than 3000 years old it is! Also, why not plan it in such a way, that AZ gained some of this tech from one of the crashed airships, which were escaping from the Soris during the Legendaries rampage? I’ll roll with it. And Nikola... Nah, he has developed the arcane technology again without any help from AZ or data from Ancient Soris Empire. Back to Chugun: where would he be created and what for? Let’s think again: he would be great at repairs, he would be first and, unfortunately, only of his kind with some small hope for building new in the modern time... His creator would be one of the arcane scientists from the huge science facility. What this facility would be like? Well, Ancient Soris Empire, as I’ve written in my notes about the underground base beforehand, is already planned to be atompunk, so... Ancient Soris Empire atompunk arcane science-heavy Black Mesa-like facility. That’ll be awesome.”

In short, entire region and ancient empire in it were created just because I thought of backstory of one of the planned characters and origin of the ancient underground complex.)