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Next up, old friends meet up with the new.\n\nThe rest of Part 12 can be found [url=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k6QoP6mJdQ3pBl8vebIy1GGdNFVfUSLSrVeGzf6Yy8s/edit#]here[/url]. I don't update it very often, but if you check back every now and then you might see it updated.\n\n[url=https://inkbunny.net/submissionsviewall.php?rid=c6a9fd4348&mode=pool&pool_id=59838&page=1&orderby=pool_order&random=no&success=]Also, obligatory link to the comic itself to which this is a fanfiction of.[/url]", "description_bbcode_parsed": "And here is the 2nd part of our saga. Next up, old friends meet up with the new.

The rest of Part 12 can be found here. I don't update it very often, but if you check back every now and then you might see it updated.

Also, obligatory link to the comic itself to which this is a fanfiction of.", "writing": "Act 80: Into the darkness\n\nHaving no intention of lugging this big thing around, the Luxray puts down the Jet Gun and rotates the shoulder he used to absorb the weapon's recoil when he fired it. Truth be told he thinks it's extremely impractical and hard to use, one needs to have augmented arms to use this thing.\n\"Mmmhhmmm.\" Veera nods to her Avali packmates.\nAs they approached the hut however, Shia silently raised his arm to tell them to stop. He's using his X-ray vision and he is seeing something concerning. He decides to speak over the comms so whoever is in there doesn't hear them.\n[i]Shia: Got one in there, I honestly thought that Jet Gun thing was the biggest thing they had. Looks like a pretty large rifle, even for the poor sod using it right now with a bipod. I don't think he will be able to turn that thing around at all, so if we avoid the door we should have no problem...and I also have a clear shot on him.[/i]\nSimple wooden walls would do nothing to stop a shot from a railgun pistol after all.\n\n[i]Eliumi: Do it, but keep it quiet. He warns, even though the element of surprise is most likely long since ruined by now, with all of the excitement outside having taken place.[/i]\n\nShia aimed into the hut and simply took the shot. After one moment of silence, he lowered his weapon. \"It's clear.\"\nOnce they go inside the hut they can all see just what weapon was ready to fire on them, with a Wartortle dead on the floor from a fresh headshot from a railgun pistol. A weapon lay at its side, a very large weapon.\n\nThe size of this rifle is simply ridiculous, the thing is longer than Nine is tall and its magazine on the top is huge. This thing looks like it can threaten tanks, but it seems not even the bigger pirates were able to effectively make use of it precisely because of how big and heavy it is. So the only use they could find was to drag it across the ground, aim it at the hut's door and have someone wait to pull the trigger when the Ghost Bear Pack got close to the door.\nShia walked closer to the weapon, now being able to actually look at it to see exactly just how big it is. \"...What the hell are they giving to these pirates?!\"\nFurthermore, there is something else of note in here, it looks like a path going down, like stairs, carved in the earth, it's...surprisingly smooth, almost too smooth. It can't have been made naturally.\nThis strangeness catches Veera's interest as it reminds her of something. \"...Did they...go down into a mystery dungeon?\"\n\"...Wait, but we already are in a mystery dungeon right?\" Now that Shia mentions it, this path going down feels even more bizarre. A mystery dungeon within a mystery dungeon?\n\n\"And more importantly, why?\" Khaun responds to Shia's first question with another, perhaps even more disturbing question. Why would, whoever is giving these weapons to them, be giving them such large (and impractical) ones such as these? That big gun might have had a very niche use here had the pack been foolish enough to just burst through the front door, as it might have easily blown away even Nine in a single shot.\nBut... that's really all it could have gotten. They would not have had time for a second shot, and would have been too close anyway. And outside of this very precise situation, there was very little practical use for such a thing. Guns like these are too big, too cumbersome, and too slow to be used as anti-infantry, and they were well below subpar in terms of anti-tank capabilities, as even against light armor this was impractical overkill, prone to overpenetration at best, and ineffectiveness at worst as was the case of most armored vehicles. In other parts of the galaxy, only the most desperate of the most desperate of the most desperate of 'occasus' militants used anti-tank guns like these, and even then, they'd dump them aside the moment that even the least effective and the most homemade of RPGs became available. And they weren't anywhere near accurate enough to use effectively as an anti-material sniper rifle. Not that this particular mon had even bothered with that, with the reliance on open sights being a testament to that, not that a scope would even work on this due to the recoil.\nKhaun realized the irony of this thought immediately however, as the Avali themselves fielded their own version of an anti-tank rifle: the Seigehammer. Though, that was different. That was less of an anti-tank rifle like this, and more of a 'Railgun Grenade Launcher'. Basically an upscaled sniper rifle that one held on the shoulder with a shaped charge, meant to penetrate vehicles or pillboxes and explode inside of them.\nHowever, the seigehammer had its own problems, namely, that it was too big for most avali to use, and was made mostly for use by either automated drones, or, like the infantry-portable one they possessed back on the ship, was made for bigger augmented races such as Protogen or Synths, as they could successfully shoulder fire the weapon without needing mount it.\nBack to his original thought, whoever had supplied them with these weapons had given them this, and the heavier weapons with a specific purpose in mind. Though what exactly was that purpose? It wasn't like they had expected armored vehicles or armored troopers to suddenly mount a raid against this facility... could they?\n\nSo many questions and no Answers...not yet anyways.\n\"Do any of you guys hear that...?\" Veera would ask as she approached the stairs.\nShia stops looking at that impractically large rifle and looks to his fellow electric-type packmate. \"Hear what?\"\nThis sound coming from this underground passage...it's hard for everyone but the Avali in the pack to make out what it is. It sounds like gunfire, and screaming. Something must be happening down there...\n\nIt only takes a minute for Eilumi to put two and two together.\n\"They're executing any prisoners they have!\" He shouts. \"We must hurry!\"\n\nDidn't have to tell Shia or Veera twice, they, and the rest of the Ghost Bear Pack, make their way down these stairs. They find themselves in a hallway lined up by odd looking support pillars, it looks like these pillars are supported by what appears to be statues of humanoid, muscular pokémon holding the whole thing up with their shoulders and heads. It's hard to tell if these are actual statues though, but they are completely unmoving. The Ghost Bear pack would spot someone stumbling out of the entryway that leads deeper into the cave, it's a pokémon. It looks like a brown wolf that has a white mane with razor sharp rocks poking out of it. While he appears to be a pirate because he is holding one of those shoddy firearms in one of his hands, he does appear...injured? He has some sort of pink crystals impaled on his chest.\nVeera and Shia pointed their weapons at the pokémon, but didn't fire just yet as there seems to be something...off. Veera was the first one to notice that despite the wolf having rocks that have been clearly stabbed into the mon's chest, he doesn't look like he is bleeding at all.\n\nEilumi notices the pink crystals, and the lack of bleeding. While the noobies in the pack are confused, Eilumi has seen this, or something similar to this, elsewhere before.\n\"Erchius monsters? Here?!\" He mutters aloud.\n\n\"What?! But I thought those only existed on the moon?!\" Shia muttered back to Eilumi. He had heard about something regarding dangerous pink crystals, but only moons.\n\"W-who's...there?\" The wolf would raise his head to look in the direction their voices came from, blurting out a question. They can see that his eyes have unnatural pink on their sclera. He does not appear to be in pain, but isn't exactly looking right in the head. Not to mention the fact he is salivating quite a bit. \"Is it you, Tagoo? Ryn?\"\nVeera is not sure what she should say to him, usually they would tell an armed assailant to drop their weapons, but she wonders if he would even understand what she is saying in his condition. \"Can you...understand me? What happened to you?\"\nHe would blink and take a step towards them. The Pink crystals on his chest begin going deeper into him. \"I never felt so full of...life.\" He sounds somewhat euphoric, at least before his movement ceases completely before he could take another step as something begins happening to his body. Some sort of reaction is triggered within causing his muscles to become more defined at first, slightly bulge even, before becoming clear that it's like his muscles are being forced to bulk up too quickly for it to be comfortable. Even his genitalia get's subjected to an abnormally high pressure erection. This also made the pokémon grip his weapon with force, first accidentally holding down the trigger and unloading whatever is left to the magazine in whatever direction he was pointing, which thankfully was nowhere near around the Ghost Bear pack, the gun's grip get's completely crush when the wolf just continued to involuntarily tighten his hand hand around it harder and harder until it broke and gun was rendered useless.\nThe Luxray and Jolteon watched on in horror, this is some sort of horror they have never seen before. What is happening here? Some sort of mutation?\nThe changing pokémon looks like he tried to take another step back but then a 'crack' could be heard from his back as his spine is being forced to lengthen, forcing him to adopt an all-fours stance to better be able to stand. This also lets them see the crystal spikes growing along his spine, getting bigger and bigger the more they emerge along his back, until...The canine's eyes begin to look in opposite directions as the area between his eyes is forced to part as a particularly long and sharp pink crystal grows from there. Giving the transformed wolf something akin to a horn.\nWhatever happened to him, its appearance is too different to have been caused by Erchius...\n\n\"Do we... shoot it?\" Loona asks very awkwardly, half scared.\nEilumi looks on for only a few moments before nodding.\n\"Yeah, shoot it.\" He orders as he raises his gun and unloads what's left of it into the beast, the rest of the pack doing the same.\n\nThe projectiles from their weapons are striking through and penetrating into the monster's flesh and making it bleed a pink-ish red liquid. But it managed to power through the pressure and jumped from where it was standing to avoid their attacks, going up high until it gripped one of the pillars with enough force for its fingers to sink into the stone. The creature remained there until they tried to shoot at it again, which made it once again jump to another pillar to hang on to and avoid their gunfire in the process. It's not just jumping around randomly though, that last jump got it significantly closer to them then what it was before.\n\"Tch! It's moving around a lot...!\" Shia said as he kept trying to shoot at the moving target with his railgun pistol.\nThe creature opened its mouth as wide as it could, as if it was about to roar...but nothing came out, as if it began to choke on something in its throat. The crystal's on its back begin lighting up in sequence, from bottom to top. Those looking directly at its mouth would be able to see something flashing from within the transformed canine's throat, the light got stronger before the creature's neck visibly bulged and something resembling a laser beam was shot out of its mouth right at the Luxray!\nShia raised his arms to defend himself, particularly his head. When the beam struck him he got pushed back a few feet. It stung badly, sure...but it didn't leave him wounded. But the sensation of it, other than the pain, made all of his fur stand on its end.\n\"Shia, you okay?!\" Veera asked, having stopped shooting to look at her packmate.\n\"Yeah, still in one piece!\" He responded back to her.\n\nEliumi sees the exchange between the two 'mons, and quickly turns back to the situation at hand.\n\"Nine! Nail'em!\"\nNine nods, and revs up his microgun. The microgun spins, and a burst of bullets spew forth from the barrel.\nThough, he hopes this will be enough, because he's running low on ammo for it now.\n\nNine was able to hit the monster just as it was jumping again, this time it could not avoid the hail of gunfire and got shot down. The microgun manages to shoot off one of the thing's arms.\nShia feels something tingling inside of himself, it's something he never felt before, it feels...unnatural. He doesn't have time to ponder on that though is that...thing dead? He looked over at the creature, seeing how damaged it was with its left arm missing and most of its chest and even its face riddled with holes. Though he does notice that damaged areas are becoming crystalized but not exactly healed, the bullet holes aren't being closed as much as they are being covered up, and the stump of it's lost arm is now a sharp crystal spike but it's too short to be of any use. Moreover it still seems to be alive because it's twitching on the floor, it looks very vulnerable though. Shia has no intention of letting it get up again though, he began rushing towards it, activating his aerogel sword to make it create a blade from the hilt. Then he leaped up high and thrusted blade down into the monster's chest with all his might, the Luxray intending to go for the kill here. Shia stared down at the unmoving creature wondering if that was it, then crystals began growing out of control, covering whatever was left the creature they were attached to and even traveling up the blade. Shia acted fast though, he made the sword eject its blade so he could back away as quickly as possible in case something bad was going to happen, he got to watch as the mass of crystal lost the tone of their pink color and then...shattered into small pieces, all of it. The body of the wolf pokémon that was transformed looks like it got turned into these crystals too before they all shattered, so there is nothing left behind of him either.\nAfter a moment of silence, the Luxray turned to his packmates, looking slightly disturbed by everything that he just witnessed. \"...It's dead.\" He said to them, as if to confirm.\n\nEliumi nods at Shia's assessment of the situation. \"I sure hope so. I'd hate for that thing to mysteriously come back.\" He comments.\n\"Though the question remains, what was that, and are there anymore?\" Khaun asks.\n\"Beats me, and as much as I hope otherwise, I doubt that was the last of them.\" Nine responds.\n\nThe Luxray then looks to that way the now-dead pokémon had come from, wondering what might be waiting for them up ahead. \"I suppose we have to keep going now.\" After taking in a moment to mentally prepare himself, he was ready. If there are going to be more mutant pokémon up ahead, he isn't going to hesitate.\n\"Honestly it's a good thing that the laser seemed to have been weak.\" Veera would comment, seeing that Shia didn't get very hurt from it.\nShia would shake his head though. \"No, it wasn't 'weak' so to speak. Moves can not cause wounds like iron or guns, remember?\" He would say to her.\n\"Oh, that...that was the move it used?\"\n\"Yeah, it felt like it, and there is no mistake. I don't really know what I felt when I got hit by it though. It hurts, sure but...\" He thinks about how he is going to explain that. \"The sensation of it felt...alien. And I'm feeling a little weird after it hit me.\" He would reach over one his to his right arm with his left hand, touching around where he got hit. His eyes went wide when he felt small bumps along his arm, as if there was something under his skin. \"Veera, can you come over here real quick...?\"\nThe area around them is now silent with the fighting done. The sounds of gunfire and the screaming that the Avali in the pack were hearing before has been replaced with distant groaning and moaning. These sounds definitively mean they might see more of those things.\n\n\"Well, so much for that hope.\" Nine responds to the groans some more.\n\"Actually, before we go on...\" Khaun looks to his protogen. \"Maybe you should scan him with that medipad? Something about that beam doesn't quite sit right with me...\"\n\"Yeah, better safe than sorry when dealing with weird stuff like this.\" Eilumi responds in kind. \"I know Shia's been training his ass off these last few months, but that attack seems to be just a little.... too ineffective.\"\n\n\"Right...\" Veera took out the medipad and made use of it to scan her fellow pokémon packmate. She looks slightly concerned.\n\"...So?\" Shia questioned, getting a bit tense.\n\"There are shards of crystals under your skin, Shia.\" She rubs her chin with her free hand. \"But they look like they are active.\" She would say before turning to the crystalline remains of the creature they killed to scan that too. \"Hmmm...To put it bluntly, the crystals within you are 'dead', just like these ones. It looks like the nanobots managed to deal with them before they could cause any problems. Does it still hurt?\"\nThis information allows Shia to calm down a little bit. \"...It's because I got hit by that attack, I'm sure of it, I still feel my arm getting sore from it. So that thing tried to 'infect' me or something like that?\"\nIt's a bit of a stretch, but Veera considers it. \"Perhaps. Or that creature could just have been acting on pure instinct. Be it what it may...whatever it had tried to spread through that laser of all things. Though I wonder why exactly the pirates seem to be the victims here too, I'm starting to think that whoever is aiding doesn't have good intentions for them.\"\nShia figures that he might need surgery to get these crystal bits off when they get back, with a sigh he speaks up again. \"Yeah, it's...apparent enough. This whole thing smells weird...and not the Miniknog type of weird.\"\nWhile they are still here, Veera took the time to also scan the nearby statues that are part of the pillars in this room, the ones that appear like muscular humanoids holding up the pillars on their back. There is something about them that just didn't sit right with her. The scan was quick to reveal that these 'statues' are actually organic beings, much to her surprise. \"Wait, are those Pokémon?!\" Granted, there are no signs of life in any of them.\nNow realizing just what these 'pillarman' are made of, Shia cringes. \"...I don't like this sense of decor, not one bit.\"\n\n\"Thank fuck for Nanites\" Eilumi comments once he hears the doctor's diagnosis.\nOnce he hears about the pillar people however, he eyes one of them suspiciously, gripping his gun.\n\"You think we should take them out?\" He asks.\n\nVeera shakes her head. \"No, they are already dead. Rigor mortis got them set in this position, by the look of things.\" She eyes the medipad one more time. \"However...the body usually goes flaccid after being stiff after a period of 36 hours or so. These look like they have been dead for far longer than that, but it looks like there is something preserving their bodies as is.\" Her tone get's a slight bit shaken there at the end at the idea of someone using dead bodies for decoration like this. What she can also conclude is that these pokémon look identical to one another, so they must be the same species. The more she analyzes it, the more disturbing it gets for her. While the 'pillar people' certainly look masculine, any trance of genitalia seems to have been surgically removed as there is nothing between their legs and the top of each of their heads have been rendered flat because of the weight being put on top of them at all times. \"...\" She imagines that things might not be any better if they go deeper, but she can't back out now. \"I think we should go.\"\n\"Hhmhmm, agree. The nanites provided a good save but i'm not sure if any pokémon without it would be so lucky. I say let's stop this thing before it spreads out of here.\" Shia says to everyone.\n\n\"Yeah. let's make sure to be thorough though. Because like you said, we don't want this spreading.\" Eliumi replies before they decide to move on.\n\nAs they make their way deeper into this cavern things start looking less and less 'natural' in the sense that it looks that this hallway they were in was drugged and carved instead of being naturally occurring. The pokémon in the pack find this slightly odd for a mystery dungeon, it looks so...orderly and non labyrinthine so far. Eventually they would get to a circular room which seems to provide other paths to take. This location is kept well lit by lights on the ceiling, which gives more evidence that this is some sort of 'base'. There is even something that looks like a camera watching them.\nUnfortunately, they aren't quite alone here. There is a Cyclizar, a sort of lizard pokemon; a Croconaw, which resembles a blue crocodile and a Zigzagoon. It also looks like these three are not exactly pirates. The three pokémon have small crystals spike puncturing from parts of their body, and are overall displaying the same symptoms the last pokémon they saw was having. Pink scleras, visible erections and an almost zombie-like behavior...minus any drastic mutations. It would appear that they were shot several times in the chest, some of the bullet holes still look fresh but it looks like it wasn't enough to put them out of their misery. As soon as the Ghost Bears were within their lines of sight, the three pokémon afflicted by the crystals began to shamble towards them with their arms outstretched trying to grab at them, all the while trying to formulate words or absentmindedly giggling.\nVeera wasn't sure if she wanted to see what was going on within them, but she uses the medipad to do so. Despite how letharthic these Pokémon's hearts are beating abnormally fast, their adrenal glands are generating steroids at an alarming rate and their brains are flooded with serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin. It's a wonder they are alive at all in this state, but she figures that the best way of killing them might be shooting them in the head.\n\nEilumi has the same idea.\n[i]Eilumi: Take no risks. Shoot them in the head.[/i]\n\nShia pointed his railgun pistol at the Croconaw, wondering if it would be more ammo efficient to kill him with his aerogel sword instead, these infected pokémon do appear to be slow and dimwitted after all. And as far as he can tell they haven't mutated.\n\"P...p...lease...i need...\" The Infected Zigzagoon begins to mumble, like he is asking for help. This causes Veera to hesitate as it makes her wonder if there is still any vestige of the person these pokémon were. However... \"I need...YOU!\" The Zigzagoon suddenly rushed in on her, whether he planned this or not he was able to take advantage of her hesitation to get close to her and hug tightly. When she was about to shout in surprise he began kissing her passionately.\nUnfortunately it wasn't just that enemy that did a sudden movement, the other ones also sprung into action. The Croconaw bit Shia's arm when his attention went to their packmate struggling with that other infected. And the biggest of the three, the Cyclizar, breaks into an all-fours charge towards the rest of the members of the ghost bears pack.\nThe Jolteon feels just how unusually warm and tense the Pokémon's body is as he keeps rubbing himself against her. This mon' forcing himself on her is making some very bad memories come back to her mind. Instinctively, she begins to electrocute him with her stored electricity in an attempt to shake him off.\nShia is also struggling with the Croconaw whose' jaw is holding on to his arm like a vice, it is not possible for pokémon to do any lasting damage to other pokémon but this still hurts quite a bit. It was bad luck for Shia that the arm that he is struggling to free is the same one that is holding his firearm, preventing him from being able to take a shot against these enemies. \"Damn it, let go! Veera, hang on!\" He places one of his feet on the infected pokémon's chest and begins trying to push him off with all the strength his leg can muster, eventually managing to free his arm from the croc's mouth.\n\nNine was previously firing away at another unidentified infected that had crawled in from the side, when he sees what's going on with Veera. Swinging into action immediately, he drops the minigun, and barrels over to where the Zigazoon is trying to force himself upon his packmate. He makes a grab for the infected zigazoon's neck, intending to rip him off of her with sheer brute force.\nEilumi and Khaun open fire upon the Cyclizar, but it's a little too late to stop it.\n\"DUCK!\" Eliumi yells, and the two dive out of the way right as it charges twoards them, the beast barely missing.\nLoona had just reached for her spear to help Veera, but seeing that nine is already dealing with it, switches targets to the Cyclizar.\n\"Alright big boy, let's dance!\" She yells as she grips her spear.\n\nVeera watched as the Zigzagoon got pulled off of her, still managing to cause some pain to her as his claws tried to grip her fur while he got yanked by Nine. Now no longer in physical contact with the mon he wanted to force himself on, the infected began to struggle against the Protogen's grip. He even tries to damage Nine's arm by scratching it with his claws. The Jolteon meanwhile, is trying to breathe to calm down, getting almost raped against after so long gave her quite a spike of stress.\nThe Croconaw roars and attempts to bite Shia again, but what he ends up biting was the barrel of a railgun pistol. Shia's railgun pistol. The Luxray glares at the infected before pulling the trigger and putting a bullet through the water-type's head, which easily kills him when it goes through the brain.\nCyclizar stumbled momentarily after he hit his head on the wall, having charged right into it after failing to him the Linoone or the two Avali. He didn't take very long for him to bounce back from that though. Then he assumed a bipedal stance and turned to the Linoone. It is very clear that this pokémon doesn't have any good intentions in store for her, his pink eyes dance with mad delight at the sigh of her, he is salivating and his exposed genitalia is throbbing. He raises his right arm, the muscles on it visibly pulsating before he attempts to swing it at her.\n\nThe metal underneath Nine's arms prevents the Zigzagoon from doing any sort of damage, only managing to scratch some of the 'fake' fur off. In fact, it seems to annoy the great protogen more than anything. Having had quite enough of this, and with other targets to attend to, the Protogen opts to end this quickly. He squeezes as hard as his servos would allow, in a deathgrip tight enough to crush even ordinary steel, let alone crystal and bone.\nLoona skillfully dodges out of her attacker's way, the claws just inches from her body. She looks down, and sees even more 'evidence' of this mon's horrid intentions for her. And... a weak spot.\n\"I don't think so, you bastard!\" She shouts, as she grips her spear, aiming straight for the Cyclizar's semi-erect cock, in an attempt to cut it off before he ever has a chance to use it ever again.\n\nEven when it looked like the Zigzagoon's eyes were about to pop out from his skull he kept on struggling until the pressure around his neck was too much to bear and it was completely crushed. The infected's body goes completely limp, he is dead now.\nLoona was able to cut off the Cycilizar's cock, it makes the pokémon stop and twitch, it looks like it definitely felt that one. The body part he lost fell to the floor, becoming a lump of crystal before it could go flaccid. The Cycilizar get's much more aggressive now, doubling his efforts of trying to swipe the Linoone with his claws, even trying to bite her.\nShia looks down at the Croconaw's corpse as it turns into crystal, similar to how it happened to that first one he killed. He wonders why this happens. The Luxray then turns around to try and help his fellow Pokémon packmate by shooting at the lizard attacking him. He attempted to shoot the lizard in the head but he is moving around too much to make that easy, the projectile still hit him on the shoulder at least...but it takes more than a single shot to do lasting damage to these pokémon infected with these strange crystals.\n\nIt's more than enough of a distraction that Loona needs.\nSpear gripped tightly in both paws, she lunges at the Cycilizar, hoping to make a direct spear strike to the heart and put an end to this encounter.\n\nIt took a few more seconds then destroying the brain, but the Cycilizard died from having his head punctured after a brief struggle of it trying to move forward despite the spear on his chest, inadvertently making the blade of Loona's weapon to go even deeper into his heart before he fell like the other three.\nAfter a moment of silence with the Ghost Bears having survived another group of these infected, they hear a man's voice talking to them, it sounds like it's coming through an intercom. [i]\"Hhhhmm, you are not like the others, are you? You all should all have been mindless beasts controlled by the crystals by now, but you aren't...that's interesting. And yes, even you...beautiful Xenos.\"[/i]\nShia and Veera looked around, with the former speaking up. \"I suppose we have you to blame for all of this happening? Who are you?\"\n[i]\"Heh, why am I supposed to tell you anything when I'm going to kill you? Well...perhaps i can tell you a bit more if you earn it.\"[/i]\nThe Luxray is having none of this though, if whoever this is talking to just to annoy them, he is not liking it. \"Did you armed those pirates?\"\n\"My my, so impatient, alright I suppose I can give you a didbit if you want it that bad~ Yes, I am indeed the one who supplies these pirates with some of our...less ideal weapons, but they were happy with it nonetheless. They didn't think twice about asking for the big ones, thinking meaning bigger means better...well, I gave them one to keep them complacent. In return they would provide me with test subjects for my experiments. The Pokémon here are so interesting, did you know that some that were supposed to walk on four legs instead walk on two?!~\" In their excitement whoever is talking to them is going a little offtopic.\n\n\"What do you mean, 'supposed to walk on four legs?!' Loona yells out.\n\"And why did you arm these pirates?\" Eilumi demands to know.\n\n[i]\"Ah, forgive me. I got a smidge bit little excited there, didn't i? Well I didn't mean that in a negative way, it's just that some pokémon species i know, like your Luxray friend over there, walk on four legs instead of two. If you have a brain you would already know why we armed these 'pirates', to make friends with them, and have some of the locals in our pocket. All that said, you do plan to go further into my little cave of wonders, right? Maybe you will find me in here, or maybe find some pokémon to save before they become blessed by the crystals.\" [/i]They can hear him laughing mockingly now. [i]\"Or you can just turn back, go tell your superior what you saw here...and possibly let me get away, leaving the Pokémon here to their fate. Don't say I didn't give you a choice now.\"[/i]\n\"You bastard. You sound no different than a sick Miniknog scientist!\" Shia angrily shouts at whoever is talking to them. \"I'm gonna make you PAY for whatever you did to these pokémon!\"\n\"...I don't know what a Miniknog is, but let me assure you I plan to be 'better' than then, you will see! So it sounds like you want to push forward after all huh? Okay, pick your path, pick your poison...it will be nice to have someone to show my work to.\"\n\nEilumi stews with anger, but even if he could think of something to say, he doubts that anything this mysterious villain says will be of any value to either them or the mission.\n\"Well, I take it no one votes to go back?\"\n\"Nope\"\n\"Nuh uh.\"\n\"No way!\"\nSeeing that no one's wanting to turn back, just like he thought, he nods.\n\"Good. Nothing to it but to press on.\"\n\nBefore they went though, Shia went over to Veera to see how she was, given what almost happened to her. \"Hey, are you feeling alright?\"\nThe Jolteon sighs and gives a nod to him. \"Yeah, I will be fine.\" She knows the shock from it will fade eventually, she just has to be strong and avoid hesitating when it comes to putting these infected out of their misery.\nThe Ghost Bear pack picked one of the three paths, as they didn't know exactly where they would lead, any would do. After going down a short hall they would find themselves overlooking a large room with many operating tables equipped with metal clasps to restrain whoever is in them, they all look empty but the majority have sighs of the restrains having been forcibly torn off. It looks like there are large formations of these pink crystals around here too in parts of the room, looking like it's trying to spread itself...it is even possible to see the silhouette of pokémon inside of these crystals.\n[i]\"Alright so you are moving? Good, I guess I will give you a treat for making up my mind huh? You may be asking why I also subjected the pirates to this when they came in here...well, they broke a little part of our deal. You see we were in agreement that they would not set foot in here no matter what or there would be consequences. I suppose you are the reason they came down here? Well no matter, they broke their promise so they had to make up for it somehow, helping with the tests was a start.\"[/i]\nAs the Ghost Bear Pack makes their way down with the help of some stairs one of the crystal formations begins to crack before exploding, setting free what looks like a bear pokémon who is covered with very thick layers of spiky crystals around the front, even it's entire head looks like it's completely covered by the stuff. Shia tries to take a shot at its head from afar, the projectile bounced right off the crystalline surface and the creature was made aware of their presence as a result.\n\"Shit...\" Shia mumbled under his breath. He has the feeling this one is going to be more dangerous than the previous ones.\nThe crystal-covered pokémon raised his arm, revealing that it was holding one of those 'jet guns' that fires explosive ordinance, but it looks like the crystals have done something to it too as it looks like the weapon became fused to the arm of its user like an arm cannon. And as the Ghost Bear Pack finds out that weapon is still functional as the creature uses it to open fire at them.\n\"It's armed? Are you joking?!\" The Luxray says in disbelief as he starts keeping his head down to find something to get behind for cover, one the nearby operating tables being the best he can find. Veera did the same too.\n\nThe other four are not so fortunate.\n\"HIT THE DECK!\" Eilumi yells as he, Khaun, and Loona throw themselves onto the floor, hoping to minimize the frag damage\n\nTaking cover was a good call as the thing is very much able to use the gun that is now part of its arm, the shots are landing close to the Ghost Bear Pack even. One of the operating tables gets shot to pieces by a few of the explosive rounds landing on it. It looks like all this noise also attracted more common infected, a Fraxure. a Timburr and a Granbull who look particularly agitated come running, and begin heading towards the Ghost Bears.\n\"I'm going to go in! That thing must have some weak point!\" Shia says before vaulting over his cover and advancing. That mutant is the biggest threat right now, but those crystals on its chest and head are too strong for his railgun pistol to penetrate and he is not sure his sword is going to have much luck either. His current plan is attacking from another angle, but he needs to get to that angle first. On his way there he would notice that Timbur has his eyes on him, while the pokémon is crazed by lust because of the crystals he still looks very much vulnerable to conventional weaponry. The Luxray took a single shot at the Timbur's leg to make him stumble and slow down, then he followed up with a slash to the neck with his aerogel sword...slitting the pokémon's throat was the minimum he could have gone for by with the momentum he had he outright manages to separate the pokémon's head from it's body. It was then that the crystalline mutant's attention went to Shia, and with it came shots from its arm cannon to assail the Luxray, but Shia did see fit to stop and take cover now and just kept running, keeping himself ahead of the stream of explosive projectiles.\n\"Guys, we've got incoming!\" Veera would shout to her other packmates as she raised herself out from under her cover to take aim at the Fraxure, narrowing her eyes and focusing greatly before taking a shot that puts that infected pokémon down with a bullet to the brain.\n\nWith the missile shooting pokemon distracted, the rest of the pack quickly follows suit. Eilumi and Khaun both raise from their position and take aim at the Granbull together, hoping to take it down together, while Loona takes out her sidearm and takes a bit of pressure off the missile launching abomination. \"Hey ugly, over here!!\" She shoots as she unloads a few shots into it, aiming for the eye socket just as Veera did with the Fraxure.\n\nThe Granbull ran straight into their weapons fire, losing speed as the projectiles penetrated its body, the pokémon got put out of its misery when one of the shots managed to hit it in the head.\nLoona's attempt at attacking the monster didn't quite work, even where it's eye holes should be is covered by a layer of spiky crystal which took the shot without much issue, seems like despite the lack of eyesight this thing's still able to fight them with a ranged weapon. Veera does shoot at it too in hopes of bringing it too, with the same result.\nThis does give Shia the opportunity to get behind the crystalline mutated pokémon to find its weak spot. The layers of these crystals on its back are weaker the closer it gets to the middle where the spine is, and the spine itself is outright exposed. \"There it is!\" The Luxray figures that a blade could go right through the spine and hopefully stab some other vital organs on it's way in, so he puts his pistol away so he can grip his aerogel sword with both of his hands and thrusts it into the creature's back with all of his might, piercing it's spine and going for it's heart! That looked like it did it and the mutant was about to fall...right on top of Shia. The Luxray quickly jerks the aerogel sword to cause its segmented blade to snap so he can pull it free, it just makes another blade when he needs it. Then he dove out of there before finding himself under the fallen creature.\nJust when it looked like it was over though, the now-dead creature's crystals began to glow, and its body detonated with a violent burst of pink light that sent bits of crystal-like fragments everywhere around it.\nShia would feel small pointy things jabbing on his back then. \"Ngh...!\" It's bits of crystals from that explosion, they look like they ended up stuck to his back.\n\n\"Take cover!\" The rest of them took cover behind a tipped table just as the crystal beast exploded, narrowly avoiding the same fate.\nOnce the dust settles, they look around at the damage caused.\n\"Shia!\" Loona is the first to notice Shia's condition. She runs over, and tries to pull the shards out of him before they can have an effect.\n\nThe crystal shards are stuck firmly to Shia's back, but Loona is able to rip it off...with a small amount of Shia's fur too...which makes him yell in pain. \"AAAAARGH!\" It doesn't leave a wound on him, the area where the crystal was just had its fur ripped off. \"Oow...!\"\nVeera also comes quickly to help, surprised that the damage that was caused was so superficial, despite looking like the crystals are lodged on Shia's flesh. \"...Shia, I'm gonna pull another, okay?\" She would say to brace himself before pulling yet another crystal, once again the rock comes off like a stubborn bandaid, taking some fur with it and making the Luxray flinch. \"No puncture again?\" She decided to scan the largest crystal on Shia to see how deep it is...and what she sees is bizarre. The crystal is trying to push itself deeper into Shia's back but it seems to be painlessly parting his flesh as it does so, it is spreading itself like it is trying to take root on the Luxray's back. \"...I'm gonna pull it out.\" She warned her packmate again before grasping that decently large chunk of crystal on his back and pulling at it. Shia looked like he was holding back another scream of pain as best as he could, everyone could hear his fur audibly ripping as the crystal came off and just left a furless patch on his back, no hole or anything...like the hole closed itself as the crystal was pulled out. Next was taking off whatever fragments of crystals remained on Shia.\n\"Ngh...What the hell is this thing?!\" Shia said as he moved a paw to feel the areas around his back, the areas where the fur got ripped off still sting.\n[i]\"Hhhhmmm...\" [/i]They hear that person's voice on the intercom again.[i] \"Despite not making use of your roots, you still came out on top...So I suppose I can give you something for your trouble. You want to know what these crystals are? They are biomass taking a solid form, not just any biomass, mind you, this used to be from a deity that has perished decades ago. The effect it has on Pokémon is reminiscent of this deity's influence when it was alive...but it isn't quite the same. These crystals attach themselves to pokémon, putting their bodies into an state of euphoric overdrive to try to make more of itself, and it accomplishes that by turning it's host's biomass into more of itself and pushing it to breed as a way to create more bodies to attach to. And as you saw, sometimes pokémon can be completely transformed by it...this occurs often in those that seem to have a prior history with aggression, hedonism and malice.\"[/i] He would chuckle [i]\"Personally though, as impractical as they are to use for the purpose of combat, throwing them at a village to see how it would spread would be...beautiful to watch.\"[/i]\n\"Sick bastard...\" Shia mumbles under his breath, growling in anger.\n[i]\"The fact none of you have gotten infected is way too apparent to be considered luck...\"[/i]\n\n\"Sorry, Shia.\" Loona apologises for roughly ripping it out and causing her packmate such pain.\nElumi looks like he was about to say something, but then the voice cut in again before he could. After it's done, Eilumi scoffs.\n\"'Not making use of your roots?!'\" Eilumi half-asks, half mocks the voice. \"What is this deranged yapping about now?\"\n\"I have a better idea.\" Khaun speaks the voice, \"How about you quit hiding and get your arse down here so we can kick it over to the nearest erchius hive?!\"\n\n[i]\"Hah, like that is going to happen! Though when i meant root i mean your pokémon power, you have that don't you? Or have you forgotten it entirely?\"[/i]\nShia raises a brow a little, it is true that he has electric powers, and X-ray vision really comes in handy the most. \"Shooting is far more efficient.\"\n[i]\"I suppose it really is, isn't it?\"[/i] He scoffs. [i]\"I find it annoying but interesting. You live here so you should have noticed it too right? As destructive as pokémon powers are, it can never kill you...but as soon as the so-called 'iron' or those weapons of yours enter the picture that is no longer the case. Don't you think that's slightly strange?\"[/i]\n\"And are you going to tell us what's up with that or what?\" He ain't really liking how this guy stops just when it looks like he is about to give them an explanation to what he is talking about.\n\"Maybe. that all depends if you still wanna continue or not.\"\nShia has no plan to stop, and the Ghost Bear pack probably doesn't either. Though it looks like that huge mass of crystals is blocking some large doors, they would need something powerful to clear this obstacle...perhaps explosives but they don't have any right now. So their only choice is going the same way those other infected came from, they can sense the coppery smell of blood...\n\n\"Hmph, coward.\" Khaun replied flatly to having his half-hearted attempt at drawing this bastard out for a quicker conclusion being shot down out of hand. \"Well, it was worth a try, at least.\" He says to the rest of the pack.\n\"I don't think he knows either, Shia.\" Nine responds to his packmate asking the voice about the strange nature of pokemon attacks.\n\"Yeah, he'd probably just give you a load of bullshit, given what we've seen of this wannabe-miniknog.\" Eilumi chimes in. He looks at the giant crystal blocking the way, and sighs.\n\"I had a bad feeling that we should have brought the seigehammer.\" He groans. \"Well, looks like we go that way.\" He says, pointing his feathery talon towards the place where the other infected came from.\n\nSo far they see no more of these 'infected' in the next room they come across, but it turns out to be something different. This is some sort of laboratory with large tanks of glass filled with what must be some amniotic fluid. Inside some of those tanks are pokémon that don't look like they have been fully formed yet. The smell of blood in here is coming from some of the tanks that looked like they got broken open and whatever was inside was messily feasted on by something. The trail of blood continues on to another part of the laboratory.\n\"What is...this?\" Veera said, trying to avert her eyes from the blood scene as she goes to scan whatever is in these thanks. \"...It looks like they are creating pokémon here, cloning, maybe?\"\nShia meanwhile, would spot something strange. It is an open box with half-red, half-gray spheres in it neatly placed side by side. Their appearance brings something to mind. \"What are these? Capture Pods...?\"\n\n\"Looks like it.\" Loona says as she eyes them over. \"Something tells me we shouldn't touch them though.\"\n\nThen they would all hear something coming their way, fast, from the direction where the trail of blood leads.\nVeera turns to it and points her pistol towards it, almost shooting at whatever it was but she stopped herself from doing so in case it was a prisoner.\nWhat everyone sees is some sort of bizarre creature, somehow even more bizarre than the Pokémon infected with crystal. Its lower body is that of a dinosaur, whatever 'upper body' it would have ended abruptly at a circular cutoff. The creature's head is at the tip of it's tail, and it looks like an aquatic creature, it even has small flippers. Its teeth look like they were replaced with iron, making its mouth look like a giant bear trap. They can also see a mangled, severed arm sticking out of its mouth, which falls off when the creature opens its iron-teeth mouth as wide as it could.\nVeera is shocked by what she is seeing, Shia is also left aghast by just how wrong this thing looks...It is a fish head on the tip of a tail of lower half of a dinosaur\n\nEliumi and the rest don't even take the time to question who or what that arm previously belonged to, their attention focused on the monstrosity before them.\n\"Does this ever end?\" He groans. \"We don't have infinite ammo, so try to take this down quickly.\"\n\nThe creature immediately proves itself hostile when it whipped its head towards them so it could bite them with its iron jaws. Veera and Shia had to jump out of the way, the latter accidently bumping right into the box with the spheres and knocking them across the floor. One opens to release a Clefairy who is confused and scared. This pokémon looks fairly normal and nods to one of the pirates, it might be one of the innocent ones that the pirates captured.\n\n\"Wait, those things have people in them?!\" Khaun yells.\nLoona has had enough of this. \"Worry about that later.\" She yells back. She takes the spear, and using it like a polearm, she attempts to slice the creature's head off at a distance.\n\nThe strike does cut into its 'neck' which would be the tail, but it's surprisingly too thick to simply cut all the way like that, the spear's blade stopping at the bone.\nShia also tried to stab it with his sword in the back, the aerogel blade piercing the scales and muscle but bones are way too tense to get through, it almost feels like it is not bone at all...\nVeera has been shooting her weapon the least so she figures she has some ammo she can use against this creature. She points her railgun pistol and shoots at it in the head while it is busy with her two other packmates. She managed to hit what she was aiming for, putting multiple holes in the creature's face and even taking out one of its eyes. But despite her best efforts it doesn't look like she was able to hit it's small brain, the creature seems to be oblivious to any pain or shock from the wounds it received, but it did take damage.\nWith a mixture of a roar and scream, the bizarre dinosaur-fish hybrid spins its head around like a huge flail for a [Brutal Swing] as it stumbles about, hitting just about anyone that is unfortunate enough to be close. Electric equipment gets crushed, the glass tanks with amniotic fluid are smashed to bits letting it's contents spill into the floor. Meanwhile Shia, Veera and Loona get struck with enough force to get send flying.\nWhile that utter chaos is going on, the Clefairy that was set free tries to crawl away from the on-going conflict.\n\nLoona flies back into the wall, hitting a table and breaking it on impact, thankfully empty glass beakers falling and breaking in the process. She groans, her back hurting from the impact. She tries to get up, but she finds she can't.\n\"Son of a bitch!\" Eilumi swears as he sees what just happened.\nIt looks like it's up to Nine once again to put this creature out of its misery before it can do more damage.\n\nThe pack's Jolteon doctor groans in pain, the impact also rendering her temporarily out of action.\nShia can't stand up right now but he is still well enough to say something. \"NINE! LOOK OUT!\" He calls out to the Protogen as the hybrid creature continues its offensive.\nIt looks like the beast is going to try to take a bite out of Nine, its iron-enhanced teeth coupled with its powerful jaw threatening to crunch the Protogen's entire torso should it manage to bite him.\n\nNine gets up, and sees the creature coming towards him. He squats down, getting ready to catch it mid-charge by the jaws, with his bare, endo-skelton enforced hands.\n\nJust when the bizzare creature was about to crush the Protogen with its teeth, Nine's hands caught its jaw and stopped the creature in its tracks. It still keeps trying to press on, its jaws trying to overpower the hands stopping them from closing and its legs straining to try to get their body to move forward. It seems...confused as to why it's jaws are being prevented from biting into the Protogen.\nLetting a pained grunt, Shia holds on to a nearby table to support himself as he somewhat get up. Moving like this hurts and he is slightly pushing himself by doing this because he was worried about Nine, but it looks like the Protogen is handling the situation.\n\n\"Not on my watch.\" The Protogen replies to the 'mons unspoken question. He then shifts his grip so that he's holding the mon's back of the head with one hand, and the lower jaw with his other. With a quick, purposeful tug, the protogen twists the neck around a full 180 degrees, the bones of the poor thing loudly cracking as its neck snaps.\n\nThe creature's head turned, its neck snapped very audibly and it fell dead on the floor with a loud thud.\nThe sound of bone snapping made Shia cringe a bit. But he is glad that scuffle is done with. \"That's that for that abomination right...?\" It's not a creature that Shia wants to see moving again, given just how wrong and unnatural it feels. After his pain somewhat numbed enough, he went over to check on his Linoone packmate. \"Loona. Loona, are you alright?\"\n\n\"Uuugh...\" She plants a hand next to her, and with some effort, pulls herself up, and hand still on her stomach. \"Bastard hit me good in the gut. I feel a bit like that first time I fought that pignite.. minus the second part.\" She coughs. \"I need a moment, but I'll be fine.\"\n\n\"Okay got it.\" Then he went to check up on Veera, who didn't take that blow as well as the others as she still seems to be on the floor. \"Veera, are you...!\"\n\"I'm...fine, I don't feel like anything's broken but that still hurts a lot.\" The Jolteon sits herself against the wall for now. \"What about that pokémon? Where are they?\"\nShia looked around, it didn't take long for him to find that pink pokémon lying on the floor. Thankfully the Clefairy seems to be completely unharmed and conscious, but she seems terrified...more so when she noticed that they were looking at her now.\n\n\"They're over there.\" Khaun points her out, nodding to her location rather than directly pointing, as to scare her less.\n\"It might be better if one of you three handled this instead of us.\" Eilumi says to the three mons of the pack. \"It looks like she's positively terrified of us right now.\"\n\"Uhhh...\" Loona looks over at her a little awkwardly. \"Veera, you do it.\" She says as she looks to her jolteon packmate. \"You've always been a lot better at being the calming voice in the face of panic than I ever was.\"\n\nThe Jolteon nods, and after taking a few more moments for her pain to ease, approaches the Clefairy. \"It's okay, it's okay...we are not going to hurt you.\"\nThe pink pokémon stares at her in fear still, but she responds to her. \"Y-you aren't going to hurt me...? Who are you people...? What is that thing?!\" She points to the creature that is dead on the floor.\n\"We are here to help you, get you out of here. I...not sure what this monster is but it is dead now, you don't have to worry about that.\" Veera calmly explains to her, being gentle with her tone so Clefairy knows that she and her pack pose no threat. \"Were you captured by the pirates?\"\n\"Yes, they took us down here and we were put in those...things.\" She points at the spheres that are strewn about on the floor. \"Oh Drizzle, I think the others are still in those things...\"\n\"Do you have any idea what's going on here?\" She asks on the off chance the Clefairy might know something.\n\"I don't know...the pirates killed some of us and took us here where we were put inside of those things. I don't even know how long I was in there just...floating in nothingness until I was let out now.\" She said. \"Please get me out of here...\"\n\"Don't worry, that's fine, we will get you out.\" Well, it's not really much in the way of info but now Veera is more worried about getting this Clefairy, and her friends still stuck in those spheres, out of this place. She looks at Khaun. \"I think we should escort them to the exit.\" She wants to make sure these pokémon are safe at least until she is sure they are out of harm's way and away from any other monstrosity that can be lurking around here.\n\n\"But.. but... but\" Eilumi begins to protest as he looks at the door leading further down the tunnel. Though, it doesn't take him long to realize the truth of the matter, which he does with a sigh. \"You're right. The safety of the prisoners comes first. I guess our villain of the week will get away this time.\"\nHe turns to head down the hall. \"Ya hear that dipshit? You won the right to flee this round. We'll be back though, so you better run while you can.\"\nWhile their first thought would be to take everyone out of the balls right off the bat, the decide against it. As they are right now, they're a lot easier to transport en-mass, and less likely to do something stupid in panic. Nine nods, and takes the box full of pokeballs in his hands.\n\"Alright, we'll have to get back to the ship. Looks like they'll need to get a much larger force to comb this area once we're out for any stragglers. For now, let's just get the hostages back to the ship.\" Eilumi commands. \"And this young lady went back to her home.\" He looks over to the Clefairy. \"Follow us. We'll get you back to your home.\"\n\n\"O-okay then...\" the Clefairy agrees to go with them.\nHowever, before they can they hear that familiar voice talking through the intercom system. \"Heh, leaving already, and here I thought you liked our fossil labs...You don't really expect me to let you walk out of here just like that, do you?\" He begins to laugh a lot. And the lights begin flickering. \"If i'm going to lose this little lab of mine, so be it, i will let you have but i don't think you are coming out of here alive...it is a shame that there won't be much left to dissect of you lot, NoR WiLl....able to WaTcH it...\" The lights flicker more and it looks like the connection he has is breaking up...it is as if this place is suffering some sort of power failure. \"GooOoODbye-\" The lights go out, and the path the Ghost Bear Pack uses to get to this room gets blocked by what seems like a blast door, they won't be able to go back the way they came.\nThe Clefairy, who was already getting uneasy with this voice which they didn't know where it was coming from, got even more uneasy when the lights began acting strange...and when they went out she began screaming in panic.\nVeera holds on to the fairy type to try to calm her down. \"Sssshhh, It's okay! Listen to my voice! I'm here!\" She manages to get her to calm down, but she is crying now. She hugs the other pokémon to try to comfort her.\nThey don't stay in complete darkness for very long as emergency lights seem to come on, but they are very dim. And the place around them is still mostly dark and silent.\n\"Goddamn it...\" Shia groans as he activates a flashlight he has on his armor. He looks to the blast door blocking their way, it seems too heavy for Nine to try to lift it open, so their other option seems to be to be that path that now-dead abomination they killed came from, question is...where is that going to lead them?\n\n\"Me and my big mouth\" Eilumi groans.\n\"Yeah, you just had to go shout down the hall, didn't you?\" Khaun also groans in irritation.\nThough it looks too thick, Nine nonetheless tries. Giving the door a few hard kicks, and then a few hard pounds. The door doesn't budge.\n\"Ugh, now I really wish we'd brought the seigehammer\" Nine says.\n\"Though to be fair, we'd probably be out of bullets for it by now.\" Loona says.\n\"Well, no putting this off now, we'll have to find another way out.\" Khaun says, looking down the hole.\n\nBefore they go though, there is the matter of making sure the mons they are going to escort are safe. While it is less than ideal and she feels bad just thinking about how they must be feeling in there, Veera thinks it would be best to take them while they are all still in their spheres. She picks that empty one up and goes to the Clefairy. \"I'm sorry to ask this but...you mind going back into this? I promise it is not for long, we will get you and your friends out of here.\"\nThe fairy-type, who is already pretty shaken, has her doubts about this. \"I-in there again...? Oh Drizzle...I don't want to go in there again...\"\n\"Yes, I know...but it's the safest way to make sure you are safe, it's not exactly safe out here.\" The Jolteon is only even considering this idea because as questionable as it is to ask for the prisoner to go back to its cell, said 'cell' can be carried in the pocket with the prisoner and all.\n\"A-alright...but please promise me you will let me out as soon as it's safe.\"\nShe nods. \"I promise. Now, how do I use this...?\" Since it's the closest thing she can think of, she tries to operate this thing like a capture pod. The red and white sphere generates a thin red beam that brought the Clefairy back in its confine when it made contact with her. \"It's like that I suppose.\" Veera said before going to pick up all the other spheres.\n\"Capture pods that can capture sentient life? Must have been that bastard who came up with such a contraption...\" Shia comments before looking at Veera. \"Are you really sure about carrying them inside of those things?\"\nShe nods. \"Yes, it's probably...i know it is not ideal but i think it's the best way for them to avoid whatever else must be waiting for us, they probably don't have to worry about those crystals getting in their bodies either.\"\n\"Alright, fair point...let's continue.\"\nThe Ghost Bear Pack continues through the only available way into this splicing laboratory, in their way there they see more tanks with creatures, one looks like a lower half of a blue plesiosaur with the tiny head and arms of a yellow theropod.\n\nThis one's tank is unusually cold, with vapor of low temperature being visible. The creature inside isn't moving.\nThey reach the other end of the lab and are met with yet another door, but this one doesn't look heavy and opens sideways. It simply doesn't open when they get close because there is no power for it to function, Nine could certainly force it open if he tried to though.\n\nEilumi tries to press the button anyway, on the off chance that it's on a separate power source or something. But no going.\n\"Well, dammit.\" He grumbles.\n\"Let me handle this.\" Nine steps up to the door, and attempts to force it open with his augmented strength.\n\nThe door's metallic parts groaned audibly as the whole thing was forced open, but it wasn't very hard to open it. Going through the pack finds themselves out of that laboratory and into a place with many large boxes around, some are already open revealing much more of those poor quality-guns and ammunition that the pirates have been using. These were probably going to be given to the pirates too, had the Ghost Bear Pack not come into the picture. Off to the side there are the more powerful weapons, those large explosive guns that Shia temporarily used on the surface. There is also a much bigger that looks like it is supposed to be carried similarly to Nine's chaingun, it is sure to be heavier though given what it fires.\n\"Maybe we can make use of some of this?\" Given that their ammo is running low and it sounded like their enemy was sure that whatever comes next might be a challenge, he thinks it is best to be prepared. He picked up one of the rounds of those larger guns, it's large, it feels like holding a soda can in his hand. \"...These are massive.\"\n\"Shia, let me see that real quick?\" Veera walked over to scan it for him with her pad. It's caliber seems to be .75 and it would appear that this ammunition is somewhat like a gyrojet, with a tiny amount of conventional explosive charge utilized alongside rocket propellant to fire the round out of the barrel and ignite it's propellant and then the round accelerates toward a target under its own power. It is designed to penetrate a target before its main charge at the tip explodes for maximum damage. So all-in-all these are rocket propelled, gyro-jet/casing hybrid, explosive tipped bullets.\n\"...It's no wonder these things kick so much.\" The Luxray said, glad that in their fight against the pirates neither he or his packmates were hit directly by any of these. And firing one of those himself was left that comfortable too on account of the recoil his shoulder felt that time\n\n\"I wonder...\" Eilumi scratches his chin as he takes a good look at the things. \"If we were to take these, turn around, and try to turn them onto the blast door in a coordinated attack, you think we could blast through the blast door and go back?\"\n\nShia ponders on that for a moment, looking over at all the variety of weaponry around them. \"Well, I'm not much of a demolitions expert but that could probably work, maybe we could even make an improvised explosive charge with what we got here in this room.\"\n\n\"Well, no sense then in trying to go further down into the pit when we can just blow our way back.\" Eilumi says cheerfully. Almost too much so. \"Gather up these rounds and whatever explosives they have. We'll rig them up to make some makeshift charges. Hopefully it'll be enough to blow a hole through that blast door so we can get back the way we came instead of going down further into this house of horrors.\"\n\nShia smiles a bit at Eilumi's cheerfulness, the Avali is rather adorable when he gets like that. \"Sounds like a plan. Veera, wanna help me look?\"\nHim and the others check around for whatever else can be of use for them to blast down that door. The jet gun ammo is a good start, but they also find some other basic explosives and decide that they look like grenades, though their labels are in an unknown language. A quick scan reveals which ones are normal explosives and which ones are more 'exotic' such as insecticide and fungicide grenades. Shia was also able to find some melee weapons, swords that look like they have chainsaw blades, brutal-looking but not the most efficient given that he has seemed better with his travel with his pack.\nWith some loose wires they could scavenge from within the walls and some other things the pack had in hand, they were able to put together some improved demolition packs that consist of bricks made of explosive ammunition tied together, with a timer to control their detonation.\nThe lights began flickering ominously at certain intervals, but the power didn't come back. Still, it gives Shia a bit of a bad feeling. \"Okay, here's the bombs, I think they should be enough.\"\n\nKhaun notices one of the chainsaw-swords and looks upon one of them with disgust.\n\"Really?\" He mutters. \"Chainsaw swords? Like that's not totally an accident waiting to happen.\" He scoffs sarcastically. \"I mean the rest of this I can kinda see. Cheap crap they dumped on these pirates. But these things... needlessly expensive, requires fuel to operate, gets put out of commission if there's any sort of loose cloth in the way, needlessly heavy to operate, and will likely jump the blade the first chance it gets. Not to mention...\" He rubs his chin. \"The teeth are too large and going the wrong way, they'd pull the 'sword' away from you the minute it started cutting. They're also too close together to be effective. Also this thing barely has enough gas in it to be used for a few minutes at a time let alone a whole battle.\"\n\"Oh boy, Khaun's weapon-nerding again.\" Eilumi chuckles.\n\"I'm just saying, you kind of have to be an idiot to even think this is a good idea.\" Khaun replies back.\n\"You mean like these guys?\" Loona looks over with a raised eyebrow.\n\"... Point taken.\" Khaun relents.\n\nGetting back to that blast door, it was time to set up the charges on it. After some quick inspection of it to work out where it's integrity is as its weakest, the Ghost Bear Pack set up the their improvised explosives on the door and took over before detonating them. The blast left a big hole on the door, big enough for all of them to make through but Nine had to squeeze through. Now back in that large operating room, the place is even less welcoming in the darkness, the only thing illuminating the area is that large cluster of crystals which is still blocking that door. Of course, whatever is behind those doors is not their problem anymore as they intend to get out of here.\nHowever, as they go, Shia, Veera and Loona would hear something, something that sounds like a distant voice that only they can hear.\n\"Huh?\" Shia stopped and looked back, the direction of it coming from...that door that is blocked by the crystals? That doesn't make any sense, no sound could be coming from behind all of that, right? And yet it sounds like it is coming closer...\nS̵̈́̈́Ă̶̖V̸̛̍E̶͙͆Ů̴͔Ś̸̞S̸͐̕Á̴͠V̶̿̈́É̴USSA̷̧͊VEUS\nBAM! Something behind those doors slammed against it from the other side, causing the crystal cluster to crack. BAM!! Another crash as heard, with the crystals becoming even more damage from whatever is hitting the door from the other side. All the while the voices that only the pokémon in the pack can hear keeps getting louder.\nF̷̋̚E̵̹̊E̴̋̚L̴̈̉S̶̿̉G̶̓͠Ò̸ODFȄ̀E̴LSGOO̵̟͝DFEELSG̵̍ͅÒ̴̓Ơ̷͒D̷̡͋\n\"W-what is this!?\" Veera sounds alarmed, very scared of whatever might be trying to break down those doors, every fiber of her being is screaming at her, telling her to get out of here because something VERY BAD is coming...\n\n\"We need to go. Now!\" Eilumi commands. The rest nod, and make their way to the nearest exit to the lab. They really don't want to find out what's clawing behind the door. They can find that out later, when they come back with heavier arms and more ammo.\n\nDidn't had to tell them twice, they were already running up the stairs to go back the way they came. Those doors didn't lasted long though, being violently bent out of shape as a horrific creature forced it's way through.\nThe horrific thing looks like something made out of pokémon fused together, a lot of pokémon. It has six large mismatched limbs that it uses to drag itself around, whatever dead infected are currently lying around get added to its mass as their remains get crushed underfoot before being absorbed. The back of this horror looks like a turtle's shell, with most of the 'plates' of this shell being composed by still-living faces of many pokémon, who still seem to be conscious enough to scream and cry out in agony. The main body of this thing alone might be as big as a mech...\nShia had to grab Veera's arm to drag her along as the sight of that amalgamation of flesh and crystal caused her to freeze in place.\nThe Ghost Bear Pack kept running, getting to the entrance hall, thankfully it seems like they are managing to stay ahead of that monstrosity, but the tremors around them indicate that it is coming after them.\n[i]Shia: Spark, we are going to beam back up! There is a monster after us![/i]\n[i]Spark: What? A monster? Like what?[/i]\n[i]Shia: No time to describe it. We are almost out, get ready, we are going to beam back up to the ship as soon as we can![/i]\nAs soon as they were back on the surface, followed by going out of the hut that was covering the entrance leading to that secret underground passage, The members of the Ghost Bear Pack currently on the ground would be free to beam back up to the dropship.\n\nEilumi doesn't need an invitation of any kind. He, and the rest of the pack beam up mere moments before the amalgamite abomination overtakes them. As soon as he's aboard, Elumi rushes to the console where Spark is piloting the craft.\n\"Spark!\" He pants, out of breath from running from that fucking thing. \"Do we have any heavy weapons left? Or is the ammo depleted by now?!\" His eyes are wide as saucers as he speaks.\n\nWhen Eilumi got there, he could see that Spark was horrified as he watched that monstrosity destroy the hut as it got to the surface. He then looked to Eilumi. \"I...i used all the rockets on that mech, but the other weapons should still have been almost at full ammo capacity!\" He said to the Avali before looking down at what's going on on the surface. \"What is that?!\"\n\"It must be some sort of bioweapon that they were making in that lab.\" Shia said as he came in, now slightly more calm now that he is out of danger for now. \"It's...horrific, it looks like it's made from bodies, don't know how many...\" Judging by how big that thing is though, it can't be a small number. \"Still, we have to do something about it. If his thing is a vector for spreading that infection, then we can't just let it be like this. We should at least crippled it before calling in something to destroy it.\"\n\n\"Well, what are you waiting for?!\" Eilumi nearly shouts upon hearing that the dropship still has its other weapons. \"Open fire on the damn thing with what the dropship has left until it's paste!\"\n\nSpark proceeded to try to do that, certainly it wouldn't be hard with all these high tech-weapons and air superiority right? Though as he starts shooting at that monster, it quickly becomes apparent that it is not as effective as expected. The hail of gauss fire does penetrate its flesh at the center mass, but it is as if this thing doesn't have anything such as 'vital organs', and the shots are clearly piercing all the way through yet the creature is still going. The beast also retaliates by shooting what can only be described as 'homing lasers' out of orifices such as the mouths from the many faces it has. Spark has to take some evasive maneuvers to evade those.\n\"Fuck...\" Shia mutters under his breath as he holds on Spark's seat so he doesn't fall down while the ship moves around to dodge those attacks. Before Raichu goes for another run, he has an idea. \"Try to take out its legs, try to focus fire on the weakest point in them!\"\n\"Mhm!\" Spark nods as he turns the ship around to get the monster on his sights again. Following Shia's instructions, he aims for one of its six limbs, aiming for what seems to be cracked crystals on its joint. The precise barrage of gauss fire cut through it like a saw, and the limb was removed. It seems like that did have some effect, and the creature is losing its balance. Another barrage takes out another one of its legs as the Ghost Bear Pack's ship flies by and prepares to turn around for another run...\n\nEilumi watches as spark does his work, as does the rest of the crew. Everyone holds on with bated breath as it goes for another run.\n\nSpark took out two more of the creature's legs and similar faction, and dodged the retaliation of lasers. Right now that beast looks like it can barely move at all with its two remaining limbs, all it can do is drag itself around rather slowly. The Dropship didn't have to do another run, the incoming attacks were decreasing in intensity so pressing the offensive more was doable, so its pilot used gauss fire to cut off the two remaining appendages of the thing. With no way to move anymore, the many screams of the abomination go silent, almost as if it is dead...but given how it could survive direct fire to it's center of mass, it is hard to really say if it is actually dead or if making it incapable of moving caused it to go into some sort of 'inactive' state.\n\"Did...did we get it?\" Spark asks as he surveys the mess that the pirate camp has now become, with everything destroyed and the grisly remains of that monstrosity. \"Don't have much more ammo.\"\n\"I suppose that is that then...\" Shia comments.\n\"We should probably make sure the Black Isle knows about this, if this is some sort of biological hazard someone is going to have to clean it.\" Veera would suggest.\n\n\"Well, that's that.\" Eilumi says with a bit of satisfaction and finality.\nBoth of which he knows won't last, since he knows darn well that 'that' really isn't just 'that. This isn't the end, this is just a temporary tactical retreat due to low supplies and hostages. They, and another group will likely need to come back later. This time with better firepower and preparedness.\nAnd speaking of hostages.\n\"Plus we still have to drop off the hostages we carried out of there.\" He says, referring to the box of pokeballs they're carrying.\n\nVeera is aware that they will have to drop the hostages, which should be a simple matter. They can just beam down to a part of the island of Anchor that isn't near Ember and then drop the hostages there and let them go back to the city proper.\nWhere did those pirates go though? It looks like they escaped the island, The Ghost Bear Pack might have to deal with them later...\nTheir trip to Anchor was straightforward, with nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual trip at higher altitudes so those on the surface don't see flying metal ships...that would raise some problems if it happened wouldn't it?\nAs they get closer, Veera starts gathering the spheres with all the pokémon inside, having a bit of trouble carrying them all in her arms. \"We are close, right?\"\n[i]Spark: Yeah, we are, we should be above the drop point in less than a minute.[/i]\n\n\"So what's the plan?\" Loona asks. \"Drop down, let them out quick, and then leave as fast as we came?\"\n\n\"I suppose that is one way to go about it...\" Though judging by her tone that wasn't exactly what Veera had in mind. \"Or we can drop down, release them from these things and point them towards Ember.\"\nShia can understand that Veera wants to take things more smoothly with these hostages they rescued, she is a caring one. \"I suppose we could do that, just as long as they know too much about us it should be okay, right?\"\n\n\"Eh, that's kind of what I meant.\" Loona rubs the back of her head in embarrassment.\n\"Well, no point in debating it further, let's get this over with.\" Eilumi says, while everyone gives him a nod. \"We should be above the drop point right now. Veera, I'll leave the talking to you on this one.\"\n\nVeera would beam down to the island, with whoever wanted to follow her coming too. This place looks perfect to free the prisoners so she gets to that, releasing each and every pokémon from these spherical prisons. The majority of them seem to be bug types.\n\"It's okay, you are safe. The town of Ember is just over there.\" Veera points in the direction of the city, they can see its walls and know where to go.\nAll of the pokémon are relieved to be back in a familiar place, though some begin questioning what just happened and what were those strangeness that befell them, and what happened to the pirates.\n\"I'm not exactly sure what these things they put you on...\" Veera motions to the empty spheres that were containing all these pokémon moments ago. \"As for the pirates....we dealt with some of them but the rest escaped. I'm not sure if the seas around here will be safe with them out here, so please spread the word that these pirates are pretty dangerous.\"\nThat Clefairy from before approaches. \"I...honestly still can't believe this is all real, I thought it was a nightmare that I would wake up from at any moment. But I am very happy to be back on Anchor. Thank you again, we will be sure to put in a good word of you...whoever you are. Do you perhaps know what happened to the rest of our friends?\"\nThe Jolteon frowns, she has nothing but bad news about that. Either they were among the pokémon they were killed by the pirates, or became infected or were part of that monstrous thing. She decides not to tell about the more grisly details though. \"I'm afraid they...didn't make it, I'm very sorry.\"\nThe pink pokémon's enthusiasm noticeably dampens now. \"Oh...it's....I understand, I suppose it can't be helped...\"\nVeera nods solemnly. Well, with this mostly done, it is pretty much time to go. \"I need to go back to my ship now, okay? Stay safe.\" It is alright to say it like this as these pokémon will probably think she means a normal ship that sails on water.\n\nThe bunch of the rescued pokemon nod and vocalize in agreement, Veera teleports back to her pack's ship. It takes a moment for at least one of the mons to notice something off.\n\"I didn't think Jolteons could learn teleportation.\" One says.\n\"They can't.\" Another one chimes in. \"Something's off about all of this.\"\n\"You think?!\" Another one asks.\n\"Well, not much we can do now but go back home... and try to forget all of this.\"\n\"Fat chance of that.\" Another one replies.\n\nAfter Veera was back on the ship, the Ghost Bear Pack set course back to the island where their previous conflict took place.\nSpark looked at the ship's ammunition total being displayed in the HUD in his vision, seeing how much of it got used up in their last endeavor. \"I sure do hope they don't mind resupplying us.\" Spark said to himself, wondering how he is going to explain to the Black Isle's quartermaster that they had to use all their ship's weapons against some sort of monster.\n\n\"Yeah. We'll have to bring it up during the debriefing.\" Eilumi half grumbles at the state of the ammo reserves. \"Well, is everyone all set?\"\nAfter resupplying, everyone nods.\nThey've all resupplied themselves with heavier guns, Nine in particular has reared himself with that railgun that he wished he had back down there.\n\"Well, alright. As much as we'd like to relax, we need to get back down there and finish things. Check if there's any more survivors, find that weird guy and put our collective boots up his ass, and clear whatever else is there. Everyone ready?\"\nAfter confirmation, they go to the teleport.\n\"Alright, We should teleport right in front of the cave entrance. Now that we're rearmed with heavier weapons and more ammo we'll just get straight to it.\"\n\"Pos that.\" Loona confirms.\n\"Well then. Teleporting now!\"\nThe group teleports back at the cave entrance. Weapons out and ready to kick ass and take names...\n\"...Huh.\" Eiluli huffs irritatingly at the sight in front of him.\n\"... So much for that idea.\" Loona adds on dead-toned as she slowly puts her weapon away, as does the rest of the group.\nBefore them is the cave alright, but the entrance is completely collapsed.\n\nNot only is the cave collapse, but the area surrounding it, which was once a pirate camp, looks to be littered with plenty of scraps of burned wood. By the look of things the place must have been razed after they left.\nShia seems just as disappointed about this too. Is there really nothing left? At least it looks like the crystals, and the remains of that thing they shot to pieces, are gone too...but there is no telling if they were all salvaged by whoever must have come here before them.\n[i]Shia: Hey Spark. Can you see anything from up there? Any life signs in the sensors.[/i]\n[i]Spark: Actually...yeah I am picking up something.[/i]\nHe perks up and raises a brow. What could this be?\n[i]Veera: How many?[/i]\n[i]Spark: Just one. I'm picking up signs of something alive within the surface of the island but I can't say for certain what it is. It seems like it's somewhere to the north.[/i]\n\"Should we check it out?\" Veera asks her packmates.\nThe Luxray nods. \"I would say yes...we are not sure what it is but it could be anything. It's highly unlikely that it's one of those pirates, but I think it's more likely for it to be either a survivor we missed...or another infected with missed.\" He said that last one grimly. \"Either way we can't just ignore it.\"\n\n\"Yeah, we should go after it.\" Eilumi agrees.\n\"Definitely.\" Loona confirms.\n\"Now that we're re-equipped, and with air support with us, I don't see a reason not to.\" Khaun chimes in.\n\nThe ghost bear pack makes their way into the island's tropical forest, going in the direction where Spark said there might be something that is still alive. The foliage around here is particularly thick, the resulting shade sort of blocks the sunlight from illuminating their path but they can still see clearly.\nThey then hear a loud sound coming from up ahead, it sounded like something sneezing, and it was quite noisy. Going further to investigate it would let them see that is a familiar thing they saw down in the laboratory. It's another one of those hybrid creatures, something that brings to mind that mixture of fish and dinosaur. Though this one has the body of a plesiosaur with light blue-color, it seems to use it's fins to walk...And it's upper body, if it can even be called that with how proportionately small compared to the rest of it, is covered by snow with only it's head and arms sticking out, resembling a yellow theropod. The creature seems to be shaking constantly, like it's struggling with the cold it's own body generates despite the hot climate of the island, it's even has mucus coming out it's nose.\n\n\"Oh...It's that thing that was in the tube.\" Shia said as he tried to keep low to not be seem by it. He feels slightly sorry just looking at that creature shaking from the cold, but seeing it flash-freeze a whole tree by sneezing at it reminds him that this thing is dangerous.\nVeera would look at it, almost considering if leaving it alone would be okay, but between that and this thing probably posing a danger for anyone when it inevitably needs sustenance, it kind of looks like just being alive is painful for it. \"...What do we do?\"\n\nEliumi sighs with disappointment. He was hoping that it would have been a survivor they'd missed. Or, as much of a longshot as it would have been, that they'd have caught that asshole 'scientist' responsible for this whole mess on his way out. But alas, it's just another amalgamite. This one looking like its very existence is torture.\nOnly one thing to do. Nine reaches for his sidearm, intent on putting down the beast-\n[b]BAM[/b]\nWith his hand barely on his weapon, let alone raised, Eilumi looks over to the source of the gunshot. Over to Nine, the seigehammer poised over his shoulder like the heavy weapon it is, its long barrel smoking from fresh use.\nIt looks like Nine was thinking the same thing he was.\nEilumi looks over to the strange creature, or rather what was the strange creature. Nine aimed the seigehammer anti tank bullet straight for the center, the shot easily cleaving the tortured abomination in two before digging a small crater a few feet away from it.\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "Act 80: Into the darkness

Having no intention of lugging this big thing around, the Luxray puts down the Jet Gun and rotates the shoulder he used to absorb the weapon's recoil when he fired it. Truth be told he thinks it's extremely impractical and hard to use, one needs to have augmented arms to use this thing.
"Mmmhhmmm." Veera nods to her Avali packmates.
As they approached the hut however, Shia silently raised his arm to tell them to stop. He's using his X-ray vision and he is seeing something concerning. He decides to speak over the comms so whoever is in there doesn't hear them.
Shia: Got one in there, I honestly thought that Jet Gun thing was the biggest thing they had. Looks like a pretty large rifle, even for the poor sod using it right now with a bipod. I don't think he will be able to turn that thing around at all, so if we avoid the door we should have no problem...and I also have a clear shot on him.
Simple wooden walls would do nothing to stop a shot from a railgun pistol after all.

Eliumi: Do it, but keep it quiet. He warns, even though the element of surprise is most likely long since ruined by now, with all of the excitement outside having taken place.

Shia aimed into the hut and simply took the shot. After one moment of silence, he lowered his weapon. "It's clear."
Once they go inside the hut they can all see just what weapon was ready to fire on them, with a Wartortle dead on the floor from a fresh headshot from a railgun pistol. A weapon lay at its side, a very large weapon.

The size of this rifle is simply ridiculous, the thing is longer than Nine is tall and its magazine on the top is huge. This thing looks like it can threaten tanks, but it seems not even the bigger pirates were able to effectively make use of it precisely because of how big and heavy it is. So the only use they could find was to drag it across the ground, aim it at the hut's door and have someone wait to pull the trigger when the Ghost Bear Pack got close to the door.
Shia walked closer to the weapon, now being able to actually look at it to see exactly just how big it is. "...What the hell are they giving to these pirates?!"
Furthermore, there is something else of note in here, it looks like a path going down, like stairs, carved in the earth, it's...surprisingly smooth, almost too smooth. It can't have been made naturally.
This strangeness catches Veera's interest as it reminds her of something. "...Did they...go down into a mystery dungeon?"
"...Wait, but we already are in a mystery dungeon right?" Now that Shia mentions it, this path going down feels even more bizarre. A mystery dungeon within a mystery dungeon?

"And more importantly, why?"  Khaun responds to Shia's first question with another, perhaps even more disturbing question. Why would, whoever is giving these weapons to them, be giving them such large (and impractical) ones such as these? That big gun might have had a very niche use here had the pack been foolish enough to just burst through the front door, as it might have easily blown away even Nine in a single shot.
But... that's really all it could have gotten. They would not have had time for a second shot, and would have been too close anyway. And outside of this very precise situation, there was very little practical use for such a thing. Guns like these are too big, too cumbersome, and too slow to be used as anti-infantry, and they were well below subpar in terms of anti-tank capabilities, as even against light armor this was impractical overkill, prone to overpenetration at best, and ineffectiveness at worst as was the case of most armored vehicles. In other parts of the galaxy, only the most desperate of the most desperate of the most desperate of 'occasus' militants used anti-tank guns like these, and even then, they'd dump them aside the moment that even the least effective and the most homemade of RPGs became available. And they weren't anywhere near accurate enough to use effectively as an anti-material sniper rifle. Not that this particular mon had even bothered with that, with the reliance on open sights being a testament to that, not that a scope would even work on this due to the recoil.
Khaun realized the irony of this thought immediately however, as the Avali themselves fielded their own version of an anti-tank rifle: the Seigehammer. Though, that was different. That was less of an anti-tank rifle like this, and more of a 'Railgun Grenade Launcher'. Basically an upscaled sniper rifle that one held on the shoulder with a shaped charge, meant to penetrate vehicles or pillboxes and explode inside of them.
However, the seigehammer had its own problems, namely, that it was too big for most avali to use, and was made mostly for use by either automated drones, or, like the infantry-portable one they possessed back on the ship, was made for bigger augmented races such as Protogen or Synths, as they could successfully shoulder fire the weapon without needing mount it.
Back to his original thought, whoever had supplied them with these weapons had given them this, and the heavier weapons with a specific purpose in mind.  Though what exactly was that purpose? It wasn't like they had expected armored vehicles or armored troopers to suddenly mount a raid against this facility... could they?

So many questions and no Answers...not yet anyways.
"Do any of you guys hear that...?" Veera would ask as she approached the stairs.
Shia stops looking at that impractically large rifle and looks to his fellow electric-type packmate. "Hear what?"
This sound coming from this underground passage...it's hard for everyone but the Avali in the pack to make out what it is. It sounds like gunfire, and screaming. Something must be happening down there...

It only takes a minute for Eilumi to put two and two together.
"They're executing any prisoners they have!" He shouts. "We must hurry!"

Didn't have to tell Shia or Veera twice, they, and the rest of the Ghost Bear Pack, make their way down these stairs. They find themselves in a hallway lined up by odd looking support pillars, it looks like these pillars are supported by what appears to be statues of humanoid, muscular pokémon holding the whole thing up with their shoulders and heads. It's hard to tell if these are actual statues though, but they are completely unmoving. The Ghost Bear pack would spot someone stumbling out of the entryway that leads deeper into the cave, it's a pokémon. It looks like a brown wolf that has a white mane with razor sharp rocks poking out of it. While he appears to be a pirate because he is holding one of those shoddy firearms in one of his hands, he does appear...injured? He has some sort of pink crystals impaled on his chest.
Veera and Shia pointed their weapons at the pokémon, but didn't fire just yet as there seems to be something...off. Veera was the first one to notice that despite the wolf having rocks that have been clearly stabbed into the mon's chest, he doesn't look like he is bleeding at all.

Eilumi notices the pink crystals, and the lack of bleeding. While the noobies in the pack are confused, Eilumi has seen this, or something similar to this, elsewhere before.
"Erchius monsters? Here?!" He mutters aloud.

"What?! But I thought those only existed on the moon?!" Shia muttered back to Eilumi. He had heard about something regarding dangerous pink crystals, but only moons.
"W-who's...there?" The wolf would raise his head to look in the direction their voices came from, blurting out a question. They can see that his eyes have unnatural pink on their sclera. He does not appear to be in pain, but isn't exactly looking right in the head. Not to mention the fact he is salivating quite a bit. "Is it you, Tagoo? Ryn?"
Veera is not sure what she should say to him, usually they would tell an armed assailant to drop their weapons, but she wonders if he would even understand what she is saying in his condition. "Can you...understand me? What happened to you?"
He would blink and take a step towards them. The Pink crystals on his chest begin going deeper into him. "I never felt so full of...life." He sounds somewhat euphoric, at least before his movement ceases completely before he could take another step as something begins happening to his body. Some sort of reaction is triggered within causing his muscles to become more defined at first, slightly bulge even, before becoming clear that it's like his muscles are being forced to bulk up too quickly for it to be comfortable. Even his genitalia get's subjected to an abnormally high pressure erection. This also made the pokémon grip his weapon with force, first accidentally holding down the trigger and unloading whatever is left to the magazine in whatever direction he was pointing, which thankfully was nowhere near around the Ghost Bear pack, the gun's grip get's completely crush when the wolf just continued to involuntarily tighten his hand hand around it harder and harder until it broke and gun was rendered useless.
The Luxray and Jolteon watched on in horror, this is some sort of horror they have never seen before. What is happening here? Some sort of mutation?
The changing pokémon looks like he tried to take another step back but then a 'crack' could be heard from his back as his spine is being forced to lengthen, forcing him to adopt an all-fours stance to better be able to stand. This also lets them see the crystal spikes growing along his spine, getting bigger and bigger the more they emerge along his back, until...The canine's eyes begin to look in opposite directions as the area between his eyes is forced to part as a particularly long and sharp pink crystal grows from there. Giving the transformed wolf something akin to a horn.
Whatever happened to him, its appearance is too different to have been caused by Erchius...

"Do we... shoot it?" Loona asks very awkwardly, half scared.
Eilumi looks on for only a few moments before nodding.
"Yeah, shoot it." He orders as he raises his gun and unloads what's left of it into the beast, the rest of the pack doing the same.

The projectiles from their weapons are striking through and penetrating into the monster's flesh and making it bleed a pink-ish red liquid. But it managed to power through the pressure and jumped from where it was standing to avoid their attacks, going up high until it gripped one of the pillars with enough force for its fingers to sink into the stone. The creature remained there until they tried to shoot at it again, which made it once again jump to another pillar to hang on to and avoid their gunfire in the process. It's not just jumping around randomly though, that last jump got it significantly closer to them then what it was before.
"Tch! It's moving around a lot...!" Shia said as he kept trying to shoot at the moving target with his railgun pistol.
The creature opened its mouth as wide as it could, as if it was about to roar...but nothing came out, as if it began to choke on something in its throat. The crystal's on its back begin lighting up in sequence, from bottom to top. Those looking directly at its mouth would be able to see something flashing from within the transformed canine's throat, the light got stronger before the creature's neck visibly bulged and something resembling a laser beam was shot out of its mouth right at the Luxray!
Shia raised his arms to defend himself, particularly his head. When the beam struck him he got pushed back a few feet. It stung badly, sure...but it didn't leave him wounded. But the sensation of it, other than the pain, made all of his fur stand on its end.
"Shia, you okay?!" Veera asked, having stopped shooting to look at her packmate.
"Yeah, still in one piece!" He responded back to her.

Eliumi sees the exchange between the two 'mons, and quickly turns back to the situation at hand.
"Nine! Nail'em!"
Nine nods, and revs up his microgun. The microgun spins, and a burst of bullets spew forth from the barrel.
Though, he hopes this will be enough, because he's running low on ammo for it now.

Nine was able to hit the monster just as it was jumping again, this time it could not avoid the hail of gunfire and got shot down. The microgun manages to shoot off one of the thing's arms.
Shia feels something tingling inside of himself, it's something he never felt before, it feels...unnatural. He doesn't have time to ponder on that though is that...thing dead? He looked over at the creature, seeing how damaged it was with its left arm missing and most of its chest and even its face riddled with holes. Though he does notice that damaged areas are becoming crystalized but not exactly healed, the bullet holes aren't being closed as much as they are being covered up, and the stump of it's lost arm is now a sharp crystal spike but it's too short to be of any use. Moreover it still seems to be alive because it's twitching on the floor, it looks very vulnerable though. Shia has no intention of letting it get up again though, he began rushing towards it, activating his aerogel sword to make it create a blade from the hilt. Then he leaped up high and thrusted blade down into the monster's chest with all his might, the Luxray intending to go for the kill here. Shia stared down at the unmoving creature wondering if that was it, then crystals began growing out of control, covering whatever was left the creature they were attached to and even traveling up the blade. Shia acted fast though, he made the sword eject its blade so he could back away as quickly as possible in case something bad was going to happen, he got to watch as the mass of crystal lost the tone of their pink color and then...shattered into small pieces, all of it. The body of the wolf pokémon that was transformed looks like it got turned into these crystals too before they all shattered, so there is nothing left behind of him either.
After a moment of silence, the Luxray turned to his packmates, looking slightly disturbed by everything that he just witnessed. "...It's dead." He said to them, as if to confirm.

Eliumi nods at Shia's assessment of the situation. "I sure hope so. I'd hate for that thing to mysteriously come back." He comments.
"Though the question remains, what was that, and are there anymore?" Khaun asks.
"Beats me, and as much as I hope otherwise, I doubt that was the last of them." Nine responds.

The Luxray then looks to that way the now-dead pokémon had come from, wondering what might be waiting for them up ahead. "I suppose we have to keep going now." After taking in a moment to mentally prepare himself, he was ready. If there are going to be more mutant pokémon up ahead, he isn't going to hesitate.
"Honestly it's a good thing that the laser seemed to have been weak." Veera would comment, seeing that Shia didn't get very hurt from it.
Shia would shake his head though. "No, it wasn't 'weak' so to speak. Moves can not cause wounds like iron or guns, remember?" He would say to her.
"Oh, that...that was the move it used?"
"Yeah, it felt like it, and there is no mistake. I don't really know what I felt when I got hit by it though. It hurts, sure but..." He thinks about how he is going to explain that. "The sensation of it felt...alien. And I'm feeling a little weird after it hit me." He would reach over one his to his right arm with his left hand, touching around where he got hit. His eyes went wide when he felt small bumps along his arm, as if there was something under his skin. "Veera, can you come over here real quick...?"
The area around them is now silent with the fighting done. The sounds of gunfire and the screaming that the Avali in the pack were hearing before has been replaced with distant groaning and moaning. These sounds definitively mean they might see more of those things.

"Well, so much for that hope." Nine responds to the groans some more.
"Actually, before we go on..." Khaun looks to his protogen. "Maybe you should scan him with that medipad? Something about that beam doesn't quite sit right with me..."
"Yeah, better safe than sorry when dealing with weird stuff like this." Eilumi responds in kind. "I know Shia's been training his ass off these last few months, but that attack seems to be just a little.... too ineffective."

"Right..." Veera took out the medipad and made use of it to scan her fellow pokémon packmate. She looks slightly concerned.
"...So?" Shia questioned, getting a bit tense.
"There are shards of crystals under your skin, Shia." She rubs her chin with her free hand. "But they look like they are active." She would say before turning to the crystalline remains of the creature they killed to scan that too. "Hmmm...To put it bluntly, the crystals within you are 'dead', just like these ones. It looks like the nanobots managed to deal with them before they could cause any problems. Does it still hurt?"
This information allows Shia to calm down a little bit. "...It's because I got hit by that attack, I'm sure of it, I still feel my arm getting sore from it. So that thing tried to 'infect' me or something like that?"
It's a bit of a stretch, but Veera considers it. "Perhaps. Or that creature could just have been acting on pure instinct. Be it what it may...whatever it had tried to spread through that laser of all things. Though I wonder why exactly the pirates seem to be the victims here too, I'm starting to think that whoever is aiding doesn't have good intentions for them."
Shia figures that he might need surgery to get these crystal bits off when they get back, with a sigh he speaks up again. "Yeah, it's...apparent enough. This whole thing smells weird...and not the Miniknog type of weird."
While they are still here, Veera took the time to also scan the nearby statues that are part of the pillars in this room, the ones that appear like muscular humanoids holding up the pillars on their back. There is something about them that just didn't sit right with her. The scan was quick to reveal that these 'statues' are actually organic beings, much to her surprise. "Wait, are those Pokémon?!" Granted, there are no signs of life in any of them.
Now realizing just what these 'pillarman' are made of, Shia cringes. "...I don't like this sense of decor, not one bit."

"Thank fuck for Nanites" Eilumi comments once he hears the doctor's diagnosis.
Once he hears about the pillar people however, he eyes one of them suspiciously, gripping his gun.
"You think we should take them out?" He asks.

Veera shakes her head. "No, they are already dead. Rigor mortis got them set in this position, by the look of things." She eyes the medipad one more time. "However...the body usually goes flaccid after being stiff after a period of 36 hours or so. These look like they have been dead for far longer than that, but it looks like there is something preserving their bodies as is." Her tone get's a slight bit shaken there at the end at the idea of someone using dead bodies for decoration like this. What she can also conclude is that these pokémon look identical to one another, so they must be the same species. The more she analyzes it, the more disturbing it gets for her. While the 'pillar people' certainly look masculine, any trance of genitalia seems to have been surgically removed as there is nothing between their legs and the top of each of their heads have been rendered flat because of the weight being put on top of them at all times. "..." She imagines that things might not be any better if they go deeper, but she can't back out now. "I think we should go."
"Hhmhmm, agree. The nanites provided a good save but i'm not sure if any pokémon without it would be so lucky. I say let's stop this thing before it spreads out of here." Shia says to everyone.

"Yeah.  let's make sure to be thorough though. Because like you said, we don't want this spreading." Eliumi replies before they decide to move on.

As they make their way deeper into this cavern things start looking less and less 'natural' in the sense that it looks that this hallway they were in was drugged and carved instead of being naturally occurring. The pokémon in the pack find this slightly odd for a mystery dungeon, it looks so...orderly and non labyrinthine so far. Eventually they would get to a circular room which seems to provide other paths to take. This location is kept well lit by lights on the ceiling, which gives more evidence that this is some sort of 'base'. There is even something that looks like a camera watching them.
Unfortunately, they aren't quite alone here. There is a Cyclizar, a sort of lizard pokemon; a Croconaw, which resembles a blue crocodile and a Zigzagoon. It also looks like these three are not exactly pirates. The three pokémon have small crystals spike puncturing from parts of their body, and are overall displaying the same symptoms the last pokémon they saw was having. Pink scleras, visible erections and an almost zombie-like behavior...minus any drastic mutations. It would appear that they were shot several times in the chest, some of the bullet holes still look fresh but it looks like it wasn't enough to put them out of their misery. As soon as the Ghost Bears were within their lines of sight, the three pokémon afflicted by the crystals began to shamble towards them with their arms outstretched trying to grab at them, all the while trying to formulate words or absentmindedly giggling.
Veera wasn't sure if she wanted to see what was going on within them, but she uses the medipad to do so. Despite how letharthic these Pokémon's hearts are beating abnormally fast, their adrenal glands are generating steroids at an alarming rate and their brains are flooded with serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin. It's a wonder they are alive at all in this state, but she figures that the best way of killing them might be shooting them in the head.

Eilumi has the same idea.
Eilumi: Take no risks. Shoot them in the head.

Shia pointed his railgun pistol at the Croconaw, wondering if it would be more ammo efficient to kill him with his aerogel sword instead, these infected pokémon do appear to be slow and dimwitted after all. And as far as he can tell they haven't mutated.
"P...p...lease...i need..." The Infected Zigzagoon begins to mumble, like he is asking for help. This causes Veera to hesitate as it makes her wonder if there is still any vestige of the person these pokémon were. However... "I need...YOU!" The Zigzagoon suddenly rushed in on her, whether he planned this or not he was able to take advantage of her hesitation to get close to her and hug tightly. When she was about to shout in surprise he began kissing her passionately.
Unfortunately it wasn't just that enemy that did a sudden movement, the other ones also sprung into action. The Croconaw bit Shia's arm when his attention went to their packmate struggling with that other infected. And the biggest of the three, the Cyclizar, breaks into an all-fours charge towards the rest of the members of the ghost bears pack.
The Jolteon feels just how unusually warm and tense the Pokémon's body is as he keeps rubbing himself against her. This mon' forcing himself on her is making some very bad memories come back to her mind. Instinctively, she begins to electrocute him with her stored electricity in an attempt to shake him off.
Shia is also struggling with the Croconaw whose' jaw is holding on to his arm like a vice, it is not possible for pokémon to do any lasting damage to other pokémon but this still hurts quite a bit. It was bad luck for Shia that the arm that he is struggling to free is the same one that is holding his firearm, preventing him from being able to take a shot against these enemies. "Damn it, let go! Veera, hang on!" He places one of his feet on the infected pokémon's chest and begins trying to push him off with all the strength his leg can muster, eventually managing to free his arm from the croc's mouth.

Nine was previously firing away at another unidentified infected that had crawled in from the side, when he sees what's going on with Veera. Swinging into action immediately, he drops the minigun, and barrels over to where the Zigazoon is trying to force himself upon his packmate. He makes a grab for the infected zigazoon's neck, intending to rip him off of her with sheer brute force.
Eilumi and Khaun open fire upon the Cyclizar, but it's a little too late to stop it.
"DUCK!" Eliumi yells, and the two dive out of the way right as it charges twoards them, the beast barely missing.
Loona had just reached for her spear to help Veera, but seeing that nine is already dealing with it, switches targets to the Cyclizar.
"Alright big boy, let's dance!" She yells as she grips her spear.

Veera watched as the Zigzagoon got pulled off of her, still managing to cause some pain to her as his claws tried to grip her fur while he got yanked by Nine. Now no longer in physical contact with the mon he wanted to force himself on, the infected began to struggle against the Protogen's grip. He even tries to damage Nine's arm by scratching it with his claws. The Jolteon meanwhile, is trying to breathe to calm down, getting almost raped against after so long gave her quite a spike of stress.
The Croconaw roars and attempts to bite Shia again, but what he ends up biting was the barrel of a railgun pistol. Shia's railgun pistol. The Luxray glares at the infected before pulling the trigger and putting a bullet through the water-type's head, which easily kills him when it goes through the brain.
Cyclizar stumbled momentarily after he hit his head on the wall, having charged right into it after failing to him the Linoone or the two Avali. He didn't take very long for him to bounce back from that though. Then he assumed a bipedal stance and turned to the Linoone. It is very clear that this pokémon doesn't have any good intentions in store for her, his pink eyes dance with mad delight at the sigh of her, he is salivating and his exposed genitalia is throbbing. He raises his right arm, the muscles on it visibly pulsating before he attempts to swing it at her.

The metal underneath Nine's arms prevents the Zigzagoon from doing any sort of damage, only managing to scratch some of the 'fake' fur off. In fact, it seems to annoy the great protogen more than anything. Having had quite enough of this, and with other targets to attend to, the Protogen opts to end this quickly. He squeezes as hard as his servos would allow, in a deathgrip tight enough to crush even ordinary steel, let alone crystal and bone.
Loona skillfully dodges out of her attacker's way, the claws just inches from her body. She looks down, and sees even more 'evidence' of this mon's horrid intentions for her. And... a weak spot.
"I don't think so, you bastard!" She shouts, as she grips her spear, aiming straight for the Cyclizar's semi-erect cock, in an attempt to cut it off before he ever has a chance to use it ever again.

Even when it looked like the Zigzagoon's eyes were about to pop out from his skull he kept on struggling until the pressure around his neck was too much to bear and it was completely crushed. The infected's body goes completely limp, he is dead now.
Loona was able to cut off the Cycilizar's cock, it makes the pokémon stop and twitch, it looks like it definitely felt that one. The body part he lost fell to the floor, becoming a lump of crystal before it could go flaccid. The Cycilizar get's much more aggressive now, doubling his efforts of trying to swipe the Linoone with his claws, even trying to bite her.
Shia looks down at the Croconaw's corpse as it turns into crystal, similar to how it happened to that first one he killed. He wonders why this happens. The Luxray then turns around to try and help his fellow Pokémon packmate by shooting at the lizard attacking him. He attempted to shoot the lizard in the head but he is moving around too much to make that easy, the projectile still hit him on the shoulder at least...but it takes more than a single shot to do lasting damage to these pokémon infected with these strange crystals.

It's more than enough of a distraction that Loona needs.
Spear gripped tightly in both paws, she lunges at the Cycilizar, hoping to make a direct spear strike to the heart and put an end to this encounter.

It took a few more seconds then destroying the brain, but the Cycilizard died from having his head punctured after a brief struggle of it trying to move forward despite the spear on his chest, inadvertently making the blade of Loona's weapon to go even deeper into his heart before he fell like the other three.
After a moment of silence with the Ghost Bears having survived another group of these infected, they hear a man's voice talking to them, it sounds like it's coming through an intercom. "Hhhhmm, you are not like the others, are you? You all should all have been mindless beasts controlled by the crystals by now, but you aren't...that's interesting. And yes, even you...beautiful Xenos."
Shia and Veera looked around, with the former speaking up. "I suppose we have you to blame for all of this happening? Who are you?"
"Heh, why am I supposed to tell you anything when I'm going to kill you? Well...perhaps i can tell you a bit more if you earn it."
The Luxray is having none of this though, if whoever this is talking to just to annoy them, he is not liking it. "Did you armed those pirates?"
"My my, so impatient, alright I suppose I can give you a didbit if you want it that bad~ Yes, I am indeed the one who supplies these pirates with some of our...less ideal weapons, but they were happy with it nonetheless. They didn't think twice about asking for the big ones, thinking meaning bigger means better...well, I gave them one to keep them complacent. In return they would provide me with test subjects for my experiments. The Pokémon here are so interesting, did you know that some that were supposed to walk on four legs instead walk on two?!~" In their excitement whoever is talking to them is going a little offtopic.

"What do you mean, 'supposed to walk on four legs?!' Loona yells out.
"And why did you arm these pirates?" Eilumi demands to know.

"Ah, forgive me. I got a smidge bit little excited there, didn't i? Well I didn't mean that in a negative way, it's just that some pokémon species i know, like your Luxray friend over there, walk on four legs instead of two. If you have a brain you would already know why we armed these 'pirates', to make friends with them, and have some of the locals in our pocket. All that said, you do plan to go further into my little cave of wonders, right? Maybe you will find me in here, or maybe find some pokémon to save before they become blessed by the crystals." They can hear him laughing mockingly now. "Or you can just turn back,  go tell your superior what you saw here...and possibly let me get away, leaving the Pokémon here to their fate. Don't say I didn't give you a choice now."
"You bastard. You sound no different than a sick Miniknog scientist!" Shia angrily shouts at whoever is talking to them. "I'm gonna make you PAY for whatever you did to these pokémon!"
"...I don't know what a Miniknog is, but let me assure you I plan to be 'better' than then, you will see! So it sounds like you want to push forward after all huh? Okay, pick your path, pick your poison...it will be nice to have someone to show my work to."

Eilumi stews with anger, but even if he could think of something to say, he doubts that anything this mysterious villain says will be of any value to either them or the mission.
"Well, I take it no one votes to go back?"
"Nope"
"Nuh uh."
"No way!"
Seeing that no one's wanting to turn back, just like he thought, he nods.
"Good. Nothing to it but to press on."

Before they went though, Shia went over to Veera to see how she was, given what almost happened to her. "Hey, are you feeling alright?"
The Jolteon sighs and gives a nod to him. "Yeah, I will be fine." She knows the shock from it will fade eventually, she just has to be strong and avoid hesitating when it comes to putting these infected out of their misery.
The Ghost Bear pack picked one of the three paths, as they didn't know exactly where they would lead, any would do. After going down a short hall they would find themselves overlooking a large room with many operating tables equipped with metal clasps to restrain whoever is in them, they all look empty but the majority have sighs of the restrains having been forcibly torn off. It looks like there are large formations of these pink crystals around here too in parts of the room, looking like it's trying to spread itself...it is even possible to see the silhouette of pokémon inside of these crystals.
"Alright so you are moving? Good, I guess I will give you a treat for making up my mind huh? You may be asking why I also subjected the pirates to this when they came in here...well, they broke a little part of our deal. You see we were in agreement that they would not set foot in here no matter what or there would be consequences. I suppose you are the reason they came down here? Well no matter, they broke their promise so they had to make up for it somehow, helping with the tests was a start."
As the Ghost Bear Pack makes their way down with the help of some stairs one of the crystal formations begins to crack before exploding, setting free what looks like a bear pokémon who is covered with very thick layers of spiky crystals around the front, even it's entire head looks like it's completely covered by the stuff. Shia tries to take a shot at its head from afar, the projectile bounced right off the crystalline surface and the creature was made aware of their presence as a result.
"Shit..." Shia mumbled under his breath. He has the feeling this one is going to be more dangerous than the previous ones.
The crystal-covered pokémon raised his arm, revealing that it was holding one of those 'jet guns' that fires explosive ordinance, but it looks like the crystals have done something to it too as it looks like the weapon became fused to the arm of its user like an arm cannon. And as the Ghost Bear Pack finds out that weapon is still functional as the creature uses it to open fire at them.
"It's armed? Are you joking?!" The Luxray says in disbelief as he starts keeping his head down to find something to get behind for cover, one the nearby operating tables being the best he can find. Veera did the same too.

The other four are not so fortunate.
"HIT THE DECK!" Eilumi yells as he, Khaun, and Loona throw themselves onto the floor, hoping to minimize the frag damage

Taking cover was a good call as the thing is very much able to use the gun that is now part of its arm, the shots are landing close to the Ghost Bear Pack even. One of the operating tables gets shot to pieces by a few of the explosive rounds landing on it. It looks like all this noise also attracted more common infected, a Fraxure. a Timburr and a Granbull who look particularly agitated come running, and begin heading towards the Ghost Bears.
"I'm going to go in! That thing must have some weak point!" Shia says before vaulting over his cover and advancing. That mutant is the biggest threat right now, but those crystals on its chest and head are too strong for his railgun pistol to penetrate and he is not sure his sword is going to have much luck either. His current plan is attacking from another angle, but he needs to get to that angle first. On his way there he would notice that Timbur has his eyes on him, while the pokémon is crazed by lust because of the crystals he still looks very much vulnerable to conventional weaponry. The Luxray took a single shot at the Timbur's leg to make him stumble and slow down, then he followed up with a slash to the neck with his aerogel sword...slitting the pokémon's throat was the minimum he could have gone for by with the momentum he had he outright manages to separate the pokémon's head from it's body. It was then that the crystalline mutant's attention went to Shia, and with it came shots from its arm cannon to assail the Luxray, but Shia did see fit to stop and take cover now and just kept running, keeping himself ahead of the stream of explosive projectiles.
"Guys, we've got incoming!" Veera would shout to her other packmates as she raised herself out from under her cover to take aim at the Fraxure, narrowing her eyes and focusing greatly before taking a shot that puts that infected pokémon down with a bullet to the brain.

With the missile shooting pokemon distracted, the rest of the pack quickly follows suit. Eilumi and Khaun both raise from their position and take aim at the Granbull together, hoping to take it down together, while Loona takes out her sidearm and takes a bit of pressure off the missile launching abomination. "Hey ugly, over here!!" She shoots as she unloads a few shots into it, aiming for the eye socket just as Veera did with the Fraxure.

The Granbull ran straight into their weapons fire, losing speed as the projectiles penetrated its body, the pokémon got put out of its misery when one of the shots managed to hit it in the head.
Loona's attempt at attacking the monster didn't quite work, even where it's eye holes should be is covered by a layer of spiky crystal which took the shot without much issue, seems like despite the lack of eyesight this thing's still able to fight them with a ranged weapon. Veera does shoot at it too in hopes of bringing it too, with the same result.
This does give Shia the opportunity to get behind the crystalline mutated pokémon to find its weak spot. The layers of these crystals on its back are weaker the closer it gets to the middle where the spine is, and the spine itself is outright exposed. "There it is!" The Luxray figures that a blade could go right through the spine and hopefully stab some other vital organs on it's way in, so he puts his pistol away so he can grip his aerogel sword with both of his hands and thrusts it into the creature's back with all of his might, piercing it's spine and going for it's heart! That looked like it did it and the mutant was about to fall...right on top of Shia. The Luxray quickly jerks the aerogel sword to cause its segmented blade to snap so he can pull it free, it just makes another blade when he needs it. Then he dove out of there before finding himself under the fallen creature.
Just when it looked like it was over though, the now-dead creature's crystals began to glow, and its body detonated with a violent burst of pink light that sent bits of crystal-like fragments everywhere around it.
Shia would feel small pointy things jabbing on his back then. "Ngh...!" It's bits of crystals from that explosion, they look like they ended up stuck to his back.

"Take cover!" The rest of them took cover behind a tipped table just as the crystal beast exploded, narrowly avoiding the same fate.
Once the dust settles, they look around at the damage caused.
"Shia!" Loona is the first to notice Shia's condition. She runs over, and tries to pull the shards out of him before they can have an effect.

The crystal shards are stuck firmly to Shia's back, but Loona is able to rip it off...with a small amount of Shia's fur too...which makes him yell in pain. "AAAAARGH!" It doesn't leave a wound on him, the area where the crystal was just had its fur ripped off. "Oow...!"
Veera also comes quickly to help, surprised that the damage that was caused was so superficial, despite looking like the crystals are lodged on Shia's flesh. "...Shia, I'm gonna pull another, okay?" She would say to brace himself before pulling yet another crystal, once again the rock comes off like a stubborn bandaid, taking some fur with it and making the Luxray flinch. "No puncture again?" She decided to scan the largest crystal on Shia to see how deep it is...and what she sees is bizarre. The crystal is trying to push itself deeper into Shia's back but it seems to be painlessly parting his flesh as it does so, it is spreading itself like it is trying to take root on the Luxray's back. "...I'm gonna pull it out." She warned her packmate again before grasping that decently large chunk of crystal on his back and pulling at it. Shia looked like he was holding back another scream of pain as best as he could, everyone could hear his fur audibly ripping as the crystal came off and just left a furless patch on his back, no hole or anything...like the hole closed itself as the crystal was pulled out. Next was taking off whatever fragments of crystals remained on Shia.
"Ngh...What the hell is this thing?!" Shia said as he moved a paw to feel the areas around his back, the areas where the fur got ripped off still sting.
"Hhhhmmm..." They hear that person's voice on the intercom again. "Despite not making use of your roots, you still came out on top...So I suppose I can give you something for your trouble. You want to know what these crystals are? They are biomass taking a solid form, not just any biomass, mind you, this used to be from a deity that has perished decades ago. The effect it has on Pokémon is reminiscent of this deity's influence when it was alive...but it isn't quite the same. These crystals attach themselves to pokémon, putting their bodies into an state of euphoric overdrive to try to make more of itself, and it accomplishes that by turning it's host's biomass into more of itself and pushing it to breed as a way to create more bodies to attach to. And as you saw, sometimes pokémon can be completely transformed by it...this occurs often in those that seem to have a prior history with aggression, hedonism and malice." He would chuckle "Personally though, as impractical as they are to use for the purpose of combat, throwing them at a village to see how it would spread would be...beautiful to watch."
"Sick bastard..." Shia mumbles under his breath, growling in anger.
"The fact none of you have gotten infected is way too apparent to be considered luck..."

"Sorry, Shia." Loona apologises for roughly ripping it out and causing her packmate such pain.
Elumi looks like he was about to say something, but then the voice cut in again before he could. After it's done, Eilumi scoffs.
"'Not making use of your roots?!'" Eilumi half-asks, half mocks the voice. "What is this deranged yapping about now?"
"I have a better idea." Khaun speaks the voice, "How about you quit hiding and get your arse down here so we can kick it over to the nearest erchius hive?!"

"Hah, like that is going to happen! Though when i meant root i mean your pokémon power, you have that don't you? Or have you forgotten it entirely?"
Shia raises a brow a little, it is true that he has electric powers, and X-ray vision really comes in handy the most. "Shooting is far more efficient."
"I suppose it really is, isn't it?" He scoffs. "I find it annoying but interesting. You live here so you should have noticed it too right? As destructive as pokémon powers are, it can never kill you...but as soon as the so-called 'iron' or those weapons of yours enter the picture that is no longer the case. Don't you think that's slightly strange?"
"And are you going to tell us what's up with that or what?" He ain't really liking how this guy stops just when it looks like he is about to give them an explanation to what he is talking about.
"Maybe. that all depends if you still wanna continue or not."
Shia has no plan to stop, and the Ghost Bear pack probably doesn't either. Though it looks like that huge mass of crystals is blocking some large doors, they would need something powerful to clear this obstacle...perhaps explosives but they don't have any right now. So their only choice is going the same way those other infected came from, they can sense the coppery smell of blood...

"Hmph, coward." Khaun replied flatly to having his half-hearted attempt at drawing this bastard out for a quicker conclusion being shot down out of hand. "Well, it was worth a try, at least." He says to the rest of the pack.
"I don't think he knows either, Shia." Nine responds to his packmate asking the voice about the strange nature of pokemon attacks.
"Yeah, he'd probably just give you a load of bullshit, given what we've seen of this wannabe-miniknog." Eilumi chimes in. He looks at the giant crystal blocking the way, and sighs.
"I had a bad feeling that we should have brought the seigehammer." He groans. "Well, looks like we go that way." He says, pointing his feathery talon towards the place where the other infected came from.

So far they see no more of these 'infected' in the next room they come across, but it turns out to be something different. This is some sort of laboratory with large tanks of glass filled with what must be some amniotic fluid. Inside some of those tanks are pokémon that don't look like they have been fully formed yet. The smell of blood in here is coming from some of the tanks that looked like they got broken open and whatever was inside was messily feasted on by something. The trail of blood continues on to another part of the laboratory.
"What is...this?" Veera said, trying to avert her eyes from the blood scene as she goes to scan whatever is in these thanks. "...It looks like they are creating pokémon here, cloning, maybe?"
Shia meanwhile, would spot something strange. It is an open box with half-red, half-gray spheres in it neatly placed side by side. Their appearance brings something to mind. "What are these? Capture Pods...?"

"Looks like it." Loona says as she eyes them over. "Something tells me we shouldn't touch them though."

Then they would all hear something coming their way, fast, from the direction where the trail of blood leads.
Veera turns to it and points her pistol towards it, almost shooting at whatever it was but she stopped herself from doing so in case it was a prisoner.
What everyone sees is some sort of bizarre creature, somehow even more bizarre than the Pokémon infected with crystal. Its lower body is that of a dinosaur, whatever 'upper body' it would have ended abruptly at a circular cutoff. The creature's head is at the tip of it's tail, and it looks like an aquatic creature, it even has small flippers. Its teeth look like they were replaced with iron, making its mouth look like a giant bear trap. They can also see a mangled, severed arm sticking out of its mouth, which falls off when the creature opens its iron-teeth mouth as wide as it could.
Veera is shocked by what she is seeing, Shia is also left aghast by just how wrong this thing looks...It is a fish head on the tip of a tail of lower half of a dinosaur

Eliumi and the rest don't even take the time to question who or what that arm previously belonged to, their attention focused on the monstrosity before them.
"Does this ever end?" He groans. "We don't have infinite ammo, so try to take this down quickly."

The creature immediately proves itself hostile when it whipped its head towards them so it could bite them with its iron jaws. Veera and Shia had to jump out of the way, the latter accidently bumping right into the box with the spheres and knocking them across the floor. One opens to release a Clefairy who is confused and scared. This pokémon looks fairly normal and nods to one of the pirates, it might be one of the innocent ones that the pirates captured.

"Wait, those things have people in them?!" Khaun yells.
Loona has had enough of this. "Worry about that later." She yells back. She takes the spear, and using it like a polearm, she attempts to slice the creature's head off at a distance.

The strike does cut into its 'neck' which would be the tail, but it's surprisingly too thick to simply cut all the way like that, the spear's blade stopping at the bone.
Shia also tried to stab it with his sword in the back, the aerogel blade piercing the scales and muscle but bones are way too tense to get through, it almost feels like it is not bone at all...
Veera has been shooting her weapon the least so she figures she has some ammo she can use against this creature. She points her railgun pistol and shoots at it in the head while it is busy with her two other packmates. She managed to hit what she was aiming for, putting multiple holes in the creature's face and even taking out one of its eyes. But despite her best efforts it doesn't look like she was able to hit it's small brain, the creature seems to be oblivious to any pain or shock from the wounds it received, but it did take damage.
With a mixture of a roar and scream, the bizarre dinosaur-fish hybrid spins its head around like a huge flail for a [Brutal Swing] as it stumbles about, hitting just about anyone that is unfortunate enough to be close. Electric equipment gets crushed, the glass tanks with amniotic fluid are smashed to bits letting it's contents spill into the floor. Meanwhile Shia, Veera and Loona get struck with enough force to get send flying.
While that utter chaos is going on, the Clefairy that was set free tries to crawl away from the on-going conflict.

Loona flies back into the wall, hitting a table and breaking it on impact, thankfully empty glass beakers falling and breaking in the process. She groans, her back hurting from the impact. She tries to get up, but she finds she can't.
"Son of a bitch!" Eilumi swears as he sees what just happened.
It looks like it's up to Nine once again to put this creature out of its misery before it can do more damage.

The pack's Jolteon doctor groans in pain, the impact also rendering her temporarily out of action.
Shia can't stand up right now but he is still well enough to say something. "NINE! LOOK OUT!" He calls out to the Protogen as the hybrid creature continues its offensive.
It looks like the beast is going to try to take a bite out of Nine, its iron-enhanced teeth coupled with its powerful jaw threatening to crunch the Protogen's entire torso should it manage to bite him.

Nine gets up, and sees the creature coming towards him. He squats down, getting ready to catch it mid-charge by the jaws, with his bare, endo-skelton enforced hands.

Just when the bizzare creature was about to crush the Protogen with its teeth, Nine's hands caught its jaw and stopped the creature in its tracks. It still keeps trying to press on, its jaws trying to overpower the hands stopping them from closing and its legs straining to try to get their body to move forward. It seems...confused as to why it's jaws are being prevented from biting into the Protogen.
Letting a pained grunt, Shia holds on to a nearby table to support himself as he somewhat get up. Moving like this hurts and he is slightly pushing himself by doing this because he was worried about Nine, but it looks like the Protogen is handling the situation.

"Not on my watch." The Protogen replies to the 'mons unspoken question. He then shifts his grip so that he's holding the mon's back of the head with one hand, and the lower jaw with his other. With a quick, purposeful tug, the protogen twists the neck around a full 180 degrees, the bones of the poor thing loudly cracking as its neck snaps.

The creature's head turned, its neck snapped very audibly and it fell dead on the floor with a loud thud.
The sound of bone snapping made Shia cringe a bit. But he is glad that scuffle is done with. "That's that for that abomination right...?" It's not a creature that Shia wants to see moving again, given just how wrong and unnatural it feels. After his pain somewhat numbed enough, he went over to check on his Linoone packmate. "Loona. Loona, are you alright?"

"Uuugh..." She plants a hand next to her, and with some effort, pulls herself up, and hand still on her stomach. "Bastard hit me good in the gut. I feel a bit like that first time I fought that pignite.. minus the second part." She coughs. "I need a moment, but I'll be fine."

"Okay got it." Then he went to check up on Veera, who didn't take that blow as well as the others as she still seems to be on the floor. "Veera, are you...!"
"I'm...fine, I don't feel like anything's broken but that still hurts a lot." The Jolteon sits herself against the wall for now. "What about that pokémon? Where are they?"
Shia looked around, it didn't take long for him to find that pink pokémon lying on the floor. Thankfully the Clefairy seems to be completely unharmed and conscious, but she seems terrified...more so when she noticed that they were looking at her now.

"They're over there." Khaun points her out, nodding to her location rather than directly pointing, as to scare her less.
"It might be better if one of you three handled this instead of us." Eilumi says to the three mons of the pack.  "It looks like she's positively terrified of us right now."
"Uhhh..." Loona looks over at her a little awkwardly. "Veera, you do it." She says as she looks to her jolteon packmate. "You've always been a lot better at being the calming voice in the face of panic than I ever was."

The Jolteon nods, and after taking a few more moments for her pain to ease, approaches the Clefairy. "It's okay, it's okay...we are not going to hurt you."
The pink pokémon stares at her in fear still, but she responds to her. "Y-you aren't going to hurt me...? Who are you people...? What is that thing?!" She points to the creature that is dead on the floor.
"We are here to help you, get you out of here. I...not sure what this monster is but it is dead now, you don't have to worry about that." Veera calmly explains to her, being gentle with her tone so Clefairy knows that she and her pack pose no threat. "Were you captured by the pirates?"
"Yes, they took us down here and we were put in those...things." She points at the spheres that are strewn about on the floor. "Oh Drizzle, I think the others are still in those things..."
"Do you have any idea what's going on here?" She asks on the off chance the Clefairy might know something.
"I don't know...the pirates killed some of us and took us here where we were put inside of those things. I don't even know how long I was in there just...floating in nothingness until I was let out now." She said. "Please get me out of here..."
"Don't worry, that's fine, we will get you out." Well, it's not really much in the way of info but now Veera is more worried about getting this Clefairy, and her friends still stuck in those spheres, out of this place. She looks at Khaun. "I think we should escort them to the exit." She wants to make sure these pokémon are safe at least until she is sure they are out of harm's way and away from any other monstrosity that can be lurking around here.

"But.. but... but" Eilumi begins to protest as he looks at the door leading further down the tunnel. Though, it doesn't take him long to realize the truth of the matter, which he does with a sigh. "You're right. The safety of the prisoners comes first. I guess our villain of the week will get away this time."
He turns to head down the hall. "Ya hear that dipshit? You won the right to flee this round. We'll be back though, so you better run while you can."
While their first thought would be to take everyone out of the balls right off the bat, the decide against it. As they are right now, they're a lot easier to transport en-mass, and less likely to do something stupid in panic. Nine nods, and takes the box full of pokeballs in his hands.
"Alright, we'll have to get back to the ship. Looks like they'll need to get a much larger force to comb this area once we're out for any stragglers. For now, let's just get the hostages back to the ship." Eilumi commands. "And this young lady went back to her home." He looks over to the Clefairy. "Follow us. We'll get you back to your home."

"O-okay then..." the Clefairy agrees to go with them.
However, before they can they hear that familiar voice talking through the intercom system. "Heh, leaving already, and here I thought you liked our fossil labs...You don't really expect me to let you walk out of here just like that, do you?" He begins to laugh a lot. And the lights begin flickering. "If i'm going to lose this little lab of mine, so be it, i will let you have but i don't think you are coming out of here alive...it is a shame that there won't be much left to dissect of you lot, NoR WiLl....able to WaTcH it..." The lights flicker more and it looks like the connection he has is breaking up...it is as if this place is suffering some sort of power failure. "GooOoODbye-" The lights go out, and the path the Ghost Bear Pack uses to get to this room gets blocked by what seems like a blast door, they won't be able to go back the way they came.
The Clefairy, who was already getting uneasy with this voice which they didn't know where it was coming from, got even more uneasy when the lights began acting strange...and when they went out she began screaming in panic.
Veera holds on to the fairy type to try to calm her down. "Sssshhh, It's okay! Listen to my voice! I'm here!" She manages to get her to calm down, but she is crying now. She hugs the other pokémon to try to comfort her.
They don't stay in complete darkness for very long as emergency lights seem to come on, but they are very dim. And the place around them is still mostly dark and silent.
"Goddamn it..." Shia groans as he activates a flashlight he has on his armor. He looks to the blast door blocking their way, it seems too heavy for Nine to try to lift it open, so their other option seems to be to be that path that now-dead abomination they killed came from, question is...where is that going to lead them?

"Me and my big mouth" Eilumi groans.
"Yeah, you just had to go shout down the hall, didn't you?" Khaun also groans in irritation.
Though it looks too thick, Nine nonetheless tries. Giving the door a few hard kicks, and then a few hard pounds. The door doesn't budge.
"Ugh, now I really wish we'd brought the seigehammer" Nine says.
"Though to be fair, we'd probably be out of bullets for it by now." Loona says.
"Well, no putting this off now, we'll have to find another way out." Khaun says, looking down the hole.

Before they go though, there is the matter of making sure the mons they are going to escort are safe. While it is less than ideal and she feels bad just thinking about how they must be feeling in there, Veera thinks it would be best to take them while they are all still in their spheres. She picks that empty one up and goes to the Clefairy. "I'm sorry to ask this but...you mind going back into this? I promise it is not for long, we will get you and your friends out of here."
The fairy-type, who is already pretty shaken, has her doubts about this. "I-in there again...? Oh Drizzle...I don't want to go in there again..."
"Yes, I know...but it's the safest way to make sure you are safe, it's not exactly safe out here." The Jolteon is only even considering this idea because as questionable as it is to ask for the prisoner to go back to its cell, said 'cell' can be carried in the pocket with the prisoner and all.
"A-alright...but please promise me you will let me out as soon as it's safe."
She nods. "I promise. Now, how do I use this...?" Since it's the closest thing she can think of, she tries to operate this thing like a capture pod. The red and white sphere generates a thin red beam that brought the Clefairy back in its confine when it made contact with her. "It's like that I suppose." Veera said before going to pick up all the other spheres.
"Capture pods that can capture sentient life? Must have been that bastard who came up with such a contraption..." Shia comments before looking at Veera. "Are you really sure about carrying them inside of those things?"
She nods. "Yes, it's probably...i know it is not ideal but i think it's the best way for them to avoid whatever else must be waiting for us, they probably don't have to worry about those crystals getting in their bodies either."
"Alright, fair point...let's continue."
The Ghost Bear Pack continues through the only available way into this splicing laboratory, in their way there they see more tanks with creatures, one looks like a lower half of a blue plesiosaur with the tiny head and arms of a yellow theropod.

This one's tank is unusually cold, with vapor of low temperature being visible. The creature inside isn't moving.
They reach the other end of the lab and are met with yet another door, but this one doesn't look heavy and opens sideways. It simply doesn't open when they get close because there is no power for it to function, Nine could certainly force it open if he tried to though.

Eilumi tries to press the button anyway, on the off chance that it's on a separate power source or something. But no going.
"Well, dammit." He grumbles.
"Let me handle this." Nine steps up to the door, and attempts to force it open with his augmented strength.

The door's metallic parts groaned audibly as the whole thing was forced open, but it wasn't very hard to open it. Going through the pack finds themselves out of that laboratory and into a place with many large boxes around, some are already open revealing much more of those poor quality-guns and ammunition that the pirates have been using. These were probably going to be given to the pirates too, had the Ghost Bear Pack not come into the picture. Off to the side there are the more powerful weapons, those large explosive guns that Shia temporarily used on the surface. There is also a much bigger that looks like it is supposed to be carried similarly to Nine's chaingun, it is sure to be heavier though given what it fires.
"Maybe we can make use of some of this?" Given that their ammo is running low and it sounded like their enemy was sure that whatever comes next might be a challenge, he thinks it is best to be prepared. He picked up one of the rounds of those larger guns, it's large, it feels like holding a soda can in his hand. "...These are massive."
"Shia, let me see that real quick?" Veera walked over to scan it for him with her pad. It's caliber seems to be .75 and it would appear that this ammunition is somewhat like a gyrojet, with a tiny amount of conventional explosive charge utilized alongside rocket propellant to fire the round out of the barrel and ignite it's propellant and then the round accelerates toward a target under its own power. It is designed to penetrate a target before its main charge at the tip explodes for maximum damage. So all-in-all these are rocket propelled, gyro-jet/casing hybrid, explosive tipped bullets.
"...It's no wonder these things kick so much." The Luxray said, glad that in their fight against the pirates neither he or his packmates were hit directly by any of these. And firing one of those himself was left that comfortable too on account of the recoil his shoulder felt that time

"I wonder..." Eilumi scratches his chin as he takes a good look at the things. "If we were to take these, turn around, and try to turn them onto the blast door in a coordinated attack, you think we could blast through the blast door and go back?"

Shia ponders on that for a moment, looking over at all the variety of weaponry around them. "Well, I'm not much of a demolitions expert but that could probably work, maybe we could even make an improvised explosive charge with what we got here in this room."

"Well, no sense then in trying to go further down into the pit when we can just blow our way back." Eilumi says cheerfully. Almost too much so. "Gather up these rounds and whatever explosives they have. We'll rig them up to make some makeshift charges. Hopefully it'll be enough to blow a hole through that blast door so we can get back the way we came instead of going down further into this house of horrors."

Shia smiles a bit at Eilumi's cheerfulness, the Avali is rather adorable when he gets like that. "Sounds like a plan. Veera, wanna help me look?"
Him and the others check around for whatever else can be of use for them to blast down that door. The jet gun ammo is a good start, but they also find some other basic explosives and decide that they look like grenades, though their labels are in an unknown language. A quick scan reveals which ones are normal explosives and which ones are more 'exotic' such as insecticide and fungicide grenades. Shia was also able to find some melee weapons, swords that look like they have chainsaw blades, brutal-looking but not the most efficient given that he has seemed better with his travel with his pack.
With some loose wires they could scavenge from within the walls and some other things the pack had in hand, they were able to put together some improved demolition packs that consist of bricks made of explosive ammunition tied together, with a timer to control their detonation.
The lights began flickering ominously at certain intervals, but the power didn't come back. Still, it gives Shia a bit of a bad feeling. "Okay, here's the bombs, I think they should be enough."

Khaun notices one of the chainsaw-swords and looks upon one of them with disgust.
"Really?" He mutters. "Chainsaw swords? Like that's not totally an accident waiting to happen." He scoffs sarcastically. "I mean the rest of this I can kinda see. Cheap crap they dumped on these pirates. But these things... needlessly expensive, requires fuel to operate, gets put out of commission if there's any sort of loose cloth in the way, needlessly heavy to operate, and will likely jump the blade the first chance it gets. Not to mention..." He rubs his chin. "The teeth are too large and going the wrong way, they'd pull the 'sword' away from you the minute it started cutting. They're also too close together to be effective. Also this thing barely has enough gas in it to be used for a few minutes at a time let alone a whole battle."
"Oh boy, Khaun's weapon-nerding again." Eilumi chuckles.
"I'm just saying, you kind of have to be an idiot to even think this is a good idea." Khaun replies back.
"You mean like these guys?" Loona looks over with a raised eyebrow.
"... Point taken." Khaun relents.

Getting back to that blast door, it was time to set up the charges on it. After some quick inspection of it to work out where it's integrity is as its weakest, the Ghost Bear Pack set up the their improvised explosives on the door and took over before detonating them. The blast left a big hole on the door, big enough for all of them to make through but Nine had to squeeze through. Now back in that large operating room, the place is even less welcoming in the darkness, the only thing illuminating the area is that large cluster of crystals which is still blocking that door. Of course, whatever is behind those doors is not their problem anymore as they intend to get out of here.
However, as they go, Shia, Veera and Loona would hear something, something that sounds like a distant voice that only they can hear.
"Huh?" Shia stopped and looked back, the direction of it coming from...that door that is blocked by the crystals? That doesn't make any sense, no sound could be coming from behind all of that, right? And yet it sounds like it is coming closer...
S̵̈́̈́Ă̶̖V̸̛̍E̶͙͆Ů̴͔Ś̸̞S̸͐̕Á̴͠V̶̿̈́É̴USSA̷̧͊VEUS
BAM! Something behind those doors slammed against it from the other side, causing the crystal cluster to crack. BAM!! Another crash as heard, with the crystals becoming even more damage from whatever is hitting the door from the other side. All the while the voices that only the pokémon in the pack can hear keeps getting louder.
F̷̋̚E̵̹̊E̴̋̚L̴̈̉S̶̿̉G̶̓͠Ò̸ODFȄ̀E̴LSGOO̵̟͝DFEELSG̵̍ͅÒ̴̓Ơ̷͒D̷̡͋
"W-what is this!?" Veera sounds alarmed, very scared of whatever might be trying to break down those doors, every fiber of her being is screaming at her, telling her to get out of here because something VERY BAD is coming...

"We need to go. Now!" Eilumi commands. The rest nod, and make their way to the nearest exit to the lab. They really don't want to find out what's clawing behind the door. They can find that out later, when they come back with heavier arms and more ammo.

Didn't had to tell them twice, they were already running up the stairs to go back the way they came. Those doors didn't lasted long though, being violently bent out of shape as a horrific creature forced it's way through.
The horrific thing looks like something made out of pokémon fused together, a lot of pokémon. It has six large mismatched limbs that it uses to drag itself around, whatever dead infected are currently lying around get added to its mass as their remains get crushed underfoot before being absorbed. The back of this horror looks like a turtle's shell, with most of the 'plates' of this shell being composed by still-living faces of many pokémon, who still seem to be conscious enough to scream and cry out in agony. The main body of this thing alone might be as big as a mech...
Shia had to grab Veera's arm to drag her along as the sight of that amalgamation of flesh and crystal caused her to freeze in place.
The Ghost Bear Pack kept running, getting to the entrance hall, thankfully it seems like they are managing to stay ahead of that monstrosity, but the tremors around them indicate that it is coming after them.
Shia: Spark, we are going to beam back up! There is a monster after us!
Spark: What? A monster? Like what?
Shia: No time to describe it. We are almost out, get ready, we are going to beam back up to the ship as soon as we can!
As soon as they were back on the surface, followed by going out of the hut that was covering the entrance leading to that secret underground passage, The members of the Ghost Bear Pack currently on the ground would be free to beam back up to the dropship.

Eilumi doesn't need an invitation of any kind. He, and the rest of the pack beam up mere moments before the amalgamite abomination overtakes them. As soon as he's aboard, Elumi rushes to the console where Spark is piloting the craft.
"Spark!" He pants, out of breath from running from that fucking thing. "Do we have any heavy weapons left? Or is the ammo depleted by now?!" His eyes are wide as saucers as he speaks.

When Eilumi got there, he could see that Spark was horrified as he watched that monstrosity destroy the hut as it got to the surface. He then looked to Eilumi. "I...i used all the rockets on that mech, but the other weapons should still have been almost at full ammo capacity!" He said to the Avali before looking down at what's going on on the surface. "What is that?!"
"It must be some sort of bioweapon that they were making in that lab." Shia said as he came in, now slightly more calm now that he is out of danger for now. "It's...horrific, it looks like it's made from bodies, don't know how many..." Judging by how big that thing is though, it can't be a small number. "Still, we have to do something about it. If his thing is a vector for spreading that infection, then we can't just let it be like this. We should at least crippled it before calling in something to destroy it."

"Well, what are you waiting for?!" Eilumi nearly shouts upon hearing that the dropship still has its other weapons. "Open fire on the damn thing with what the dropship has left until it's paste!"

Spark proceeded to try to do that, certainly it wouldn't be hard with all these high tech-weapons and air superiority right? Though as he starts shooting at that monster, it quickly becomes apparent that it is not as effective as expected. The hail of gauss fire does penetrate its flesh at the center mass, but it is as if this thing doesn't have anything such as 'vital organs', and the shots are clearly piercing all the way through yet the creature is still going. The beast also retaliates by shooting what can only be described as 'homing lasers' out of orifices such as the mouths from the many faces it has. Spark has to take some evasive maneuvers to evade those.
"Fuck..." Shia mutters under his breath as he holds on Spark's seat so he doesn't fall down while the ship moves around to dodge those attacks. Before Raichu goes for another run, he has an idea. "Try to take out its legs, try to focus fire on the weakest point in them!"
"Mhm!" Spark nods as he turns the ship around to get the monster on his sights again. Following Shia's instructions, he aims for one of its six limbs, aiming for what seems to be cracked crystals on its joint. The precise barrage of gauss fire cut through it like a saw, and the limb was removed. It seems like that did have some effect, and the creature is losing its balance. Another barrage takes out another one of its legs as the Ghost Bear Pack's ship flies by and prepares to turn around for another run...

Eilumi watches as spark does his work, as does the rest of the crew. Everyone holds on with bated breath as it goes for another run.

Spark took out two more of the creature's legs and similar faction, and dodged the retaliation of lasers. Right now that beast looks like it can barely move at all with its two remaining limbs, all it can do is drag itself around rather slowly. The Dropship didn't have to do another run, the incoming attacks were decreasing in intensity so pressing the offensive more was doable, so its pilot used gauss fire to cut off the two remaining appendages of the thing.  With no way to move anymore, the many screams of the abomination go silent, almost as if it is dead...but given how it could survive direct fire to it's center of mass, it is hard to really say if it is actually dead or if making it incapable of moving caused it to go into some sort of 'inactive' state.
"Did...did we get it?" Spark asks as he surveys the mess that the pirate camp has now become, with everything destroyed and the grisly remains of that monstrosity. "Don't have much more ammo."
"I suppose that is that then..." Shia comments.
"We should probably make sure the Black Isle knows about this, if this is some sort of biological hazard someone is going to have to clean it." Veera would suggest.

"Well, that's that." Eilumi says with a bit of satisfaction and finality.
Both of which he knows won't last, since he knows darn well that 'that' really isn't just 'that. This isn't the end, this is just a temporary tactical retreat due to low supplies and hostages. They, and another group will likely need to come back later. This time with better firepower and preparedness.
And speaking of hostages.
"Plus we still have to drop off the hostages we carried out of there." He says, referring to the box of pokeballs they're carrying.

Veera is aware that they will have to drop the hostages, which should be a simple matter. They can just beam down to a part of the island of Anchor that isn't near Ember and then drop the hostages there and let them go back to the city proper.
Where did those pirates go though? It looks like they escaped the island, The Ghost Bear Pack might have to deal with them later...
Their trip to Anchor was straightforward, with nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual trip at higher altitudes so those on the surface don't see flying metal ships...that would raise some problems if it happened wouldn't it?
As they get closer, Veera starts gathering the spheres with all the pokémon inside, having a bit of trouble carrying them all in her arms. "We are close, right?"
Spark: Yeah, we are, we should be above the drop point in less than a minute.

"So what's the plan?" Loona asks. "Drop down, let them out quick, and then leave as fast as we came?"

"I suppose that is one way to go about it..." Though judging by her tone that wasn't exactly what Veera had in mind. "Or we can drop down, release them from these things and point them towards Ember."
Shia can understand that Veera wants to take things more smoothly with these hostages they rescued, she is a caring one. "I suppose we could do that, just as long as they know too much about us it should be okay, right?"

"Eh, that's kind of what I meant." Loona rubs the back of her head in embarrassment.
"Well, no point in debating it further, let's get this over with." Eilumi says, while everyone gives him a nod. "We should be above the drop point right now. Veera, I'll leave the talking to you on this one."

Veera would beam down to the island, with whoever wanted to follow her coming too. This place looks perfect to free the prisoners so she gets to that, releasing each and every pokémon from these spherical prisons. The majority of them seem to be bug types.
"It's okay, you are safe. The town of Ember is just over there." Veera points in the direction of the city, they can see its walls and know where to go.
All of the pokémon are relieved to be back in a familiar place, though some begin questioning what just happened and what were those strangeness that befell them, and what happened to the pirates.
"I'm not exactly sure what these things they put you on..." Veera motions to the empty spheres that were containing all these pokémon moments ago. "As for the pirates....we dealt with some of them but the rest escaped. I'm not sure if the seas around here will be safe with them out here, so please spread the word that these pirates are pretty dangerous."
That Clefairy from before approaches. "I...honestly still can't believe this is all real, I thought it was a nightmare that I would wake up from at any moment. But I am very happy to be back on Anchor. Thank you again, we will be sure to put in a good word of you...whoever you are. Do you perhaps know what happened to the rest of our friends?"
The Jolteon frowns, she has nothing but bad news about that. Either they were among the pokémon they were killed by the pirates, or became infected or were part of that monstrous thing. She decides not to tell about the more grisly details though. "I'm afraid they...didn't make it, I'm very sorry."
The pink pokémon's enthusiasm noticeably dampens now. "Oh...it's....I understand, I suppose it can't be helped..."
Veera nods solemnly. Well, with this mostly done, it is pretty much time to go. "I need to go back to my ship now, okay? Stay safe." It is alright to say it like this as these pokémon will probably think she means a normal ship that sails on water.

The bunch of the rescued pokemon nod and vocalize in agreement, Veera teleports back to her pack's ship. It takes a moment for at least one of the mons to notice something off.
"I didn't think Jolteons could learn teleportation." One says.
"They can't." Another one chimes in. "Something's off about all of this."
"You think?!" Another one asks.
"Well, not much we can do now but go back home... and try to forget all of this."
"Fat chance of that." Another one replies.

After Veera was back on the ship, the Ghost Bear Pack set course back to the island where their previous conflict took place.
Spark looked at the ship's ammunition total being displayed in the HUD in his vision, seeing how much of it got used up in their last endeavor. "I sure do hope they don't mind resupplying us." Spark said to himself, wondering how he is going to explain to the Black Isle's quartermaster that they had to use all their ship's weapons against some sort of monster.

"Yeah. We'll have to bring it up during the debriefing." Eilumi half grumbles at the state of the ammo reserves. "Well, is everyone all set?"
After resupplying, everyone nods.
They've all resupplied themselves with heavier guns, Nine in particular has reared himself with that railgun that he wished he had back down there.
"Well, alright. As much as we'd like to relax, we need to get back down there and finish things. Check if there's any more survivors, find that weird guy and put our collective boots up his ass, and clear whatever else is there. Everyone ready?"
After confirmation, they go to the teleport.
"Alright, We should teleport right in front of the cave entrance. Now that we're rearmed with heavier weapons and more ammo we'll just get straight to it."
"Pos that." Loona confirms.
"Well then. Teleporting now!"
The group teleports back at the cave entrance. Weapons out and ready to kick ass and take names...
"...Huh." Eiluli huffs irritatingly at the sight in front of him.
"... So much for that idea." Loona adds on dead-toned as she slowly puts her weapon away, as does the rest of the group.
Before them is the cave alright, but the entrance is completely collapsed.

Not only is the cave collapse, but the area surrounding it, which was once a pirate camp, looks to be littered with plenty of scraps of burned wood. By the look of things the place must have been razed after they left.
Shia seems just as disappointed about this too. Is there really nothing left? At least it looks like the crystals, and the remains of that thing they shot to pieces, are gone too...but there is no telling if they were all salvaged by whoever must have come here before them.
Shia: Hey Spark. Can you see anything from up there? Any life signs in the sensors.
Spark: Actually...yeah I am picking up something.
He perks up and raises a brow. What could this be?
Veera: How many?
Spark: Just one. I'm picking up signs of something alive within the surface of the island but I can't say for certain what it is. It seems like it's somewhere to the north.
"Should we check it out?" Veera asks her packmates.
The Luxray nods. "I would say yes...we are not sure what it is but it could be anything. It's highly unlikely that it's one of those pirates, but I think it's more likely for it to be either a survivor we missed...or another infected with missed." He said that last one grimly. "Either way we can't just ignore it."

"Yeah, we should go after it." Eilumi agrees.
"Definitely." Loona confirms.
"Now that we're re-equipped, and with air support with us, I don't see a reason not to." Khaun chimes in.

The ghost bear pack makes their way into the island's tropical forest, going in the direction where Spark said there might be something that is still alive. The foliage around here is particularly thick, the resulting shade sort of blocks the sunlight from illuminating their path but they can still see clearly.
They then hear a loud sound coming from up ahead, it sounded like something sneezing, and it was quite noisy. Going further to investigate it would let them see that is a familiar thing they saw down in the laboratory. It's another one of those hybrid creatures, something that brings to mind that mixture of fish and dinosaur. Though this one has the body of a plesiosaur with light blue-color, it seems to use it's fins to walk...And it's upper body, if it can even be called that with how proportionately small compared to the rest of it, is covered by snow with only it's head and arms sticking out, resembling a yellow theropod. The creature seems to be shaking constantly, like it's struggling with the cold it's own body generates despite the hot climate of the island, it's even has mucus coming out it's nose.

"Oh...It's that thing that was in the tube." Shia said as he tried to keep low to not be seem by it. He feels slightly sorry just looking at that creature shaking from the cold, but seeing it flash-freeze a whole tree by sneezing at it reminds him that this thing is dangerous.
Veera would look at it, almost considering if leaving it alone would be okay, but between that and this thing probably posing a danger for anyone when it inevitably needs sustenance, it kind of looks like just being alive is painful for it. "...What do we do?"

Eliumi sighs with disappointment. He was hoping that it would have been a survivor they'd missed. Or, as much of a longshot as it would have been, that they'd have caught that asshole 'scientist' responsible for this whole mess on his way out. But alas, it's just another amalgamite. This one looking like its very existence is torture.
Only one thing to do.  Nine reaches for his sidearm, intent on putting down the beast-
BAM
With his hand barely on his weapon, let alone raised, Eilumi looks over to the source of the gunshot. Over to Nine, the seigehammer poised over his shoulder like the heavy weapon it is, its long barrel smoking from fresh use.
It looks like Nine was thinking the same thing he was.
Eilumi looks over to the strange creature, or rather what was the strange creature. Nine aimed the seigehammer anti tank bullet straight for the center, the shot easily cleaving the tortured abomination in two before digging a small crater a few feet away from it.
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