'Nora' the Lilligant
The Gracedia Order
Lytala city, The Anticassamar Hotel and Casino
Affected RPers: @Death's Spook indirectly

((Zillion: A counterpart to Google with roughly the same backstory.))
((Wikipedia: Wikipedia. The more things change, the more things stay the same.))

The arrangement was quick and brief on both parties. Nora could not speak for the Gracedia Order in any extent-if anything, what she was doing right now constituted her as a Steel Scavenger Double Agent to the Gracedia Order. The Gracedia Order and the GIA were friggin paranoid. Disregarding their dislike of Blackbriar and Coalrock having (among other violations against nature) incendiary air, Anthony and his Seven Knights were terrifying on a degree that Nora rarely found, and were frequently talked about as having Ante or even referring to the Onyx Circle's members having inferior versions of whatever they had. Nora's own (heavily inflated) status among criminals was second only to legends (very rarely not even that)-but apparently that was because she got the better of at least one of the knights in the Petrox incident, and Nora wasn't even sure if that was the case, as was typical for enemy spies.

Due to this lack of power, compared to the fact she had somehow managed a barter with the head of the Steel Scavengers and the Seven Knights, the arrangement was subtle enough. The information trade that was previously regarded in the knowledge of the Black Lotus was still a go, including the finer points of Ante and the Master Blaze Jewel's effects, if ever she found anything-the exchange was precisely that right back on the part of the others, a simple enough deal. The next part of the offer, however, was that the Steel Scavengers would be allowed shot number two should the Gracedia Order screw up the theft attempt on the Master Blaze Jewel. Six days to steal it at this rate-no way it was happening tonight. It meant that time was of the essence. Nora swore the schedules shortened-she'd have to consider raiding it on days with deaths, or at least some very heavy intelligence gathering much sooner, but also competent replacements much sooner, which the Steel Scavengers could provide. Sadly, no word on whether or not she could get it on with Arlington had surfaced.

It was a very thin legwork, but it would work for now, and the deal sufficed. If Nora hadn't believed quite thoroughly that Anthony was not seeking power, merely righteousness, she would never have made that deal and prepared an attempt at one hell of an escape. Now that her theories were correct... Well, the Scavvies would try it in kind against her, that was the give-and-take. Figure out their strategies or at least how strict this moral code of Anthony's really was. Apparently theft from the morally ambiguous Blacklocke was A-OK.

Which lead into what she spent the rest of the day doing. She couldn't associate with the Gracedia Order operatives-yet. The outrage was too much and an assassin could fit into a crowd to try to kill her, easy. It wouldn't even be tried. She couldn't go to their other hideout, either; the GIA operatives were deliberately left in the dark to not have everything be compromised by one agent's flub. In retrospect, this was ingenious, as good of a counter to Ante as it could get.

This meant that, after the usual roundabouts and loop-de-loops one would make to lose spies and unwanted persons from their trail, they headed straight back to the Anticassamar. The Rotom split from them here-he offered his address on plain paper to keep, instead, which, if Nora remembered her street districts well enough, was a relatively middle-class apartment. But as for Nora and Yvonne, they went straight back to the Anticassamar. There was work to be done in private. Surprisingly mundane work.

First, she drunk an expensive cocktail at the bar. The price was staggering but Nora deemed that cocktail the best beverage she ever had. She could have had her crown bloom from that, for how well it tasted. She was no connoisseur in the fine art of drink, but she knew a good cold one when she tasted it. She needed it for what she just did. After that, more common but still great beers filled the void.

Second, she went back to her room. Ninth floor, Ninth door to the left, room 927. Nora shrugged off the many nines, pulled out a cheap laptop, complained about exorbitant wi-fi fees, put out a notebook, wrote down any information she remembered (taking great care not to even mention her contact with Anthony, instead stating that she needed to look into some aggressive drug dealers), and tabbed up Zillion and Wikipedia for searching. Almighty Arceus, Merciful Mew, and all the legends between them-thank rutting rut for the gracious free information service that is the internet! This would be much harder without it, as some of the oldest players of the game could state. But now, any fact that could be checked publicly could be done without an ounce of fear, once you took the proper precautions to keep internet contact to darknet browsers, as the darknet had an unwavering advantage in that no-one could tell who was who, a legitimate online privacy, unlike the false sense of security the mainline browsers set. She could speak to Queen Taiya for all she knew and neither would know it.

Her first instinct, because it was the most recent information she had, was to look up that Alakazam in the fancy suit. Surprisingly, her mediocre search in Zillion was an instant hit, but it was a slap in the face. Humans were gonna start coming out of the woodwork and announce that Nora was secretly the reincarnation of two legendary Pokemon at once at this rate. It made her sick to look at. Either this guy had one heckuva selection of lookalikes who needed part-time jobs in Telefare, or one of the richest Pokemon in the world had some inane reason to chauffeur a candidate to replace Zaiaku in Murhe. What made this proper complicated was that this particular Alakazam was not even 'just' a propserous upper-class Alakazam Businessman-no. This was the prosperous upper-class Alakazam Buisnessman, Yolion Branne, who founded and supported many businesses in Lytala and across Liao, many of which were great successes. One could almost be nonplussed at the fact that this mon had only 10% of the stock ownership in Blacklocke, which put him fairly low on the official heirarchy of ownership for Blacklocke-but that was enough to make Nora sweat. Steinway somehow knew one of the stockholders behind Blacklocke, and for all Nora knew, may have active, vested interest in the weapons company, and thus the Master Blaze Jewel. How much did she know? How much did she care? Nora was suddenly jittery. As much as she hated Steinway, she also didn't want to go up against her as she was downright uncanny, in every sense, and Nora was already assured Steinway was trying to kill her last time. As an ally.

Nora realized that a look into Steinway would, in fact, only give her the piano manufacturer. Nora had to groan at the revelation of the pun before searching up the only job that she knew Steinway was involved in, the theft of that purifier. Nora got a chuckle out of reading that police were still utterly baffled at the precision steps of the theft, and could only confirm that it was likely the work of a single quadruped-Steinway for sure, unless people were going to start debating the 'Are Lilligant Quadrupeds' thing again, which was stupid as that also referred to having no arms and having a prominent four-legged posture, while Nora's graceful four feet were within a more bipedal frame. Ignorant louts.

Dozens of treasures were apparently looted in the process-several were destroyed, others were merely stolen (most by the guards, Nora knew. Very poor choice of guards, if Nora thought so herself), including the prototype water purifier. Of these, only the purifier was retrieved at the house of a particular sect of the Thundercrash Gang that had just moved into the city, including the Sylveon that had apparently committed the crime. All died in the ensuring shootout. Nora knew that the Sylveon in that shootout was not Steinway. The stupid fox was alive and well. It meant that Steinway managed to pin it on them, somehow. Nora had to ask her how she did that... Then realized she wouldn't answer in a way that wasn't a massive headache to endure. The purifier itself was actually kind of ordinary, which lead Nora to wonder whether or not her real goal was killing those Thundercrash gang members as Steinway didn't make an apparent cent off of that business, no matter what.

Realizing that this wasn't getting anywhere, Nora shook off the thoughts and focused. Even in the confines of her own apartment on the darknet, Nora would not get caught reading up on any of the three major powers was begging for suspicion, if it were ever seen personally. Plus, doubtless the information would be muddled by the normal biases. So she couldn't quite look up Anthony Carpenter-Weaver here. She also didn't want to be even seen looking at a Steel Scavenger forum or the like-her own teammates would get suspicious.

Instead, she looked up the games. Checked the teams and the Black Lotus roster for Day 2 Blood Pit, as well as other rosters. Subject to change, of course-the Black Lotus were actually kind of generous about who gets rostered in, bar convicted criminals who aren't allowed to be so wishy-washy.

Nora's team consisted of a lot less agents than before. The reality was that not every idiot in the Black Lotus could use Ante. Some whispered that it would be unwise to put the eggs in the basket, but, har har, the joke was on them-the Black Lotus were more or less ousted as Onyx Circle members were now top-priority kills to prevent any... Information gains. Which was the basis of her current little plan. That said, the general consensus was that they need not put every egg into the basket, and as such, Nora was going to be the competitor for this day amongst the Phantom Thorn operatives-but it would be nightmarish if Nora died to a Black Lotus operative with Ante now, and said operative lived. Or she just died to said operative, period. Nora was not usually this religious, but on the day before her potential death a lot could go wrong. She was high-strung enough to start genuinely praying to Celebi for her preservation. And also to get rid of that headache as she browsed through other websites and wikipedia to get as much structural data on the entire arena as possible.

Analysis, analysis, analysis. She was self-educated if she was educated at all. She didn't even go to preschool for pete's sake. However, she still grasped concepts. Taught herself how to read and write; taught herself how to measure loose distances with a quick eyeball; taught herself this; taught herself that. Nora figured that she would love Ante if ever she had it, but by all means she did not need it for her work. She's uncovered crap without it before; it would only be a convenience, not a requirement for her job, because if she couldn't herself work out how to do things or learn things, she'd be out of a job pretty fast. And in the world of the information age, there was quite a bit you could gleam just by going to the obvious sources. Just knowing the facts leads to the conclusions.

Nora could have been a pretty decent scientist had she been formally educated, in her own estimation. her brief ponderings on Ante made her write down a few questions: If one Ante user kills another, do the stolen memories of the deceased transfer to the killer? By what intangible rules does Ante determine whether or not someone had slain another to steal their memories? Does it have another name? How long has this existed? Are the Black Lotus the first wielders? Would killing, say, a substitute doll count as killing the wielder? Are there entities whose memories cannot be absorbed, or absorbed safely, through Ante? All these things and more swam through Nora's mind, and if she found the answers, she would find the weaknesses of the Onyx Circle-and through them, how the Onyx Circle would behave. It certainly explained the aspect of the games.

Wikipedia was surprisingly on-the-ball; though Ante was still not more than rumor 'officially', almost everyone had felt that the Grand Lady's theory, as it had been introduced, was extremely popular. It had explained almost all the advanced skill of the Onyx Circle as well as their numbers while circumventing the 'obvious problem' that they were physiologically no different from the average Pokemon, indeed occasionally inferior in a few aspects. It still was not the most popular theory, however. And even though Nora had very little reason to doubt what had occured, it was still just that-a theory. It was possible that Ante hid more secrets than just that, or that Vurden was an exceptionally skilled actor. It had not crossed Nora that his reaction could have been faked to lead the Grand Lady on and plant false information. She kept ideas open, though... It had to beg the question on why she made that guess, then.

Of course, ideally, Nora would have to deal with Ante in no capacity whatsoever in the Blood Pit Arena. If her plan succeeded, then she'd be famous, like a scientist proving a theory, but it would not be about Ante. Her 'theory' was a method to kill everyone at such ungodly pace that no-one could stop her. Thankfully, the Gracedia Order were stocked with this kind of occasion, and that included a critical component to her plan. The plan, however, also involved predicting and taking into account field conditions and changing rosters. Doubtless there may be some arrangement that Anthony could pull-but she couldn't promise likewise of the Gracedia Order, so if that was even an idea to him it was likely bust unless the Scavvies could push the GO over the edge on a victory against the Black Lotus. Of course, ideally, such a scenario would merely be good gesture rather than vital to the plan.

The last edge was family. She wasn't watching Dread Metal, but the scoreboards were still active, and all the Black Lotus agents had been killed-not even as close as it was in the other games. Smashing! OF cousre, things were different now-with herself and a whole team now on the ball, the real reason for participation became killing Black Lotus clandstinely. Even if they weren't the best, sooner or later Taiya would run out of 'expendable' Black Lotus goons because Taiya was an idiot. Taiya was expecting her numerical ability to basically send relative chumps in and still have them be better than the rest was going to factor in. Like hell it was-if a pattern started to form regarding her defeats, she may actually start thinking she might lose the whole shebang (a prospect that pleased Nora greatly internally if only because she enjoyed the idea of the queen throwing a hissy fit over sending what she considered to be relatively expendable and expecting a win.) Taiya could afford losses... Taiya could not afford to lose the whole games, however. No, no no. If Taiya lost the whole games, it would barely matter. The people around her would look at her and her Black Lotus, scoff at them and their apparent weakness, and go ally up with the other rebel factions because each and every last one was now assured that they were strong. And then...

...Taiya very well underestimated the idea of rebellion. Clearly she had-with popular support-usurped the various minor powers across Liao. Clearly Taiya thought it the strength of her elite Ante troops. Taiya had never looked at a Minigun before. A lot of tiny bullets that shredded someone to bits. She was used to elegance-elegant swordplay, elegant strikes, quick and deadly but always, always elegant. Her Ante troops were elegant. Her everything-each in its own way-was utterly elegant and elite. Taiya would therefore die to a mob of uncoordinated, uncivil, indeed downright filthy Pokemon who would think Taiya weak, and rush in. And that would be that-because even a weak, uncivil, untrained Pokemon, in sufficient numbers, was going to beat out anything, and with everyone flinging around their own brand of superpowers... Heh.

She was wondering what Taiya was actually thinking. Probably treating it calm and composed and going all 'OK, this isn't the time to panic. No worries, just some opening losses and things I can spin my way. Possibly even advantageous on the whole.'

Nora wasn't the suave face person-she spoke pretty good with the dirt of society but anything else was kind of... No. But she had a pretty good idea that Taiya was yet underestimating her foes, and that was good.

It would make the look on her face better when Nora envisioned it later.

The only thing that spoiled these thoughts, aside from the fact Nora could also die, was the fact that her using of Swift in the Anticassamar would certainly not be useful, a fact she used to blemish the name of the various Legendary Pokemon she was previously begging for protection. She'd have to drink tonight to get good sleep.