AGATHA
Manager Office, Thrifty Megamart, Akala
Affected RPers: @Desolate Divine

“You wouldn’t dare!” Willow shouted at Nicodemus. “What the hell is wrong with you!?”

Willow’s shouting could be heard throughout most of the Megamart, and it was definitely enough to get Agatha’s attention. She had confronted the two of them, wondering what had caused the commotion.

“Tell me this is something important,” Agatha growled at the two witches. “Details. Now.”

“Through my ongoing research, I have discovered a means to accelerate the Netherclysm spell,” Nicodemus hissed with a smile. “Additive reagents, to be precise. Very rare, but very effective.”

“And what are these reagents?” Agatha asked, taking an interest in this proposal.

“Eon blood, specifically,” Nicodemus flashed a gnarled, toothy grin. “The blood of Latios and Latias combined. It would resonate well with the nether energies the spell needs to feed upon. Their blood, the vital fluids of brother and sister legendaries… would be a banquet, my liege.”

Agatha then looked to Willow and could understand what the commotion was about. She knew Willow happened to be the trainer of Latias, and she was especially fond of her.

“How much sooner would this accelerate the spell?” Agatha asked, wondering what Nicodemus had uncovered in his research.

“At least a whole day…” Nicodemus smiled. “But we would benefit more the sooner it is added to the Netherclysm’s feast…”

“This is insane!” Willow shouted in dismay. “I’m not going to hurt my own Pokémon to bleed. Especially not Latias!”

“Barely a sacrifice,” Agatha countered in a firm tone, losing her patience. “You draw out as much as Nicodemus needs and nothing less. Pokémon exist only to battle, and they’re no strangers to bleeding. Draw it out in the apothecary room and stop wasting time about this.”

“But we don’t even have Latios with us,” Willow replied, trying to justify her lack of compliance. “Don’t you need both of them? This could all be for nothing!”

Agatha’s patience with Willow was growing thinner and she already despised the fact she questioned her judgment and authority. Normally, Willow had been compliant and obedient throughout most of what had transpired, but this was a major deviation from the traits that Agatha had liked about her. Now, her lack of cooperation was becoming a serious problem.

“We already know Latios is here,” Agatha growled at her. “And with him is none other than Jon Drake. Aaron and his scouts had spotted him during the attack in Heahea.”

“Indeed, I had been made aware of this as well,” Nicodemus grinned. “I wouldn’t have brought it up otherwise if I didn’t think it was possible to get our hands on his blood.”

“You really expect to get Latios’s blood?” Willow asked, thinking that was absurd. “Jon would murder you if you tried.”

“Oh, I welcome him to try!” Nicodemus laughed maniacally. “I do. I most certainly do. But he is just but a simple man. Now, prepare the bloodletter. I have something I need to take care of first, but I’d better see you in the apothecary once I’m done. Because, as you well know, human blood has its uses as a reagent, too…”

Willow bowed down and nodded, although miserable and regretful about what this was driving her to do. As Nicodemus shambled away back into his chambers like a zombie walking, Willow sighed and made her way to the makeshift apothecary that had once been one of the back storerooms. She had decided she had already taken a few bad steps to getting on Agatha’s bad side and she really couldn’t afford to deviate much more if she didn’t want to be branded as a traitor.

Once she had stepped into the apothecary, Willow’s nose was immediately assaulted by a plethora of strange odors from the many vials, flasks, and bowls of herbs, oils, and other bizarre reagents placed upon the shelves, tables, and workbenches. The dusty and poorly-lit room was filthy from all the use of reagents and lack of etiquette in cleaning up. With a heavy heart, Willow had taken Latias’s Pokéball, primed it for release, and summoned the Eon Pokémon before her. Within seconds, the red and white draconic jet-shaped Pokémon suddenly materialized from the white light. She levitated above the ground, looking at her surroundings to see the unkempt apothecary around her.

Normally, Latias was a happy, cheerful, and optimistic Pokémon, but lately things had been hard for her. She was happy to see Willow, but the look on Willow’s somber and regretful face said this wasn’t a happy occasion. Normally, Latias wouldn’t peer into Willow’s mind out of respect for her privacy, but now she had a bad feeling…

<Willow, what’s… what’s going on? This place is a mess.>

She could hear Latias speaking to her telepathically, like they had communicated several times before.

“They need your blood,” Willow told her, being as up front and as honest as she could be with her. “Turns out it’s a powerful amplifier reagent for the one big spell they want to cast.”

<Netherclysm, isn’t it…?>

“Don’t let anyone know I told you about that… please…” Willow whispered, checking over her shoulder to make sure no one was within earshot. “They’ll kill me if they found out. Or worse. But yes, they need your blood… and your brother’s blood. Latios.”

Just the mention of her brother’s name got her on the alert, but then… she felt a presence. She hadn’t sensed it before while she was in her Pokéball, but now that she was outside of it, she could sense him… nearby. On this very island. She then looked back to Willow.

<Exactly how much blood do they need?>

“I don’t know…” Willow muttered, looking downcast and almost in denial this was happening. “It sounds like… they want a lot. Everything they’re doing is all for this spell and from what I’ve seen, no sacrifice is too great…”

<We should just go. Forget this place and let’s just go back home. There’s something wrong with all of this!>

“I know, but we can’t leave…” Willow replied, shaking her head. “They’ve entrapped everyone on the island. If I run, I’m dead. I swear, I never should have come here…”

Latias felt terrible about the whole situation, but she knew it wasn’t Willow’s fault. She had remembered the way Willow described this whole excursion, and at first it sounded like a way for Willow to learn and amplify her Shadowcraft powers. But now it had taken a very dark turn, and cutting ties and getting caught would be fatal. But at the same time, Latias knew they couldn’t stay here. Even if she wasn’t a psychic Pokémon, she could just sense this place was brimming with dark, unholy ambitions, the kind that Willow was not expecting to have to deal with.

Instead, Latias had closed her eyes, sensing through the expanse of space. Her connection to her brother was strong, and now… she needed his help. More than ever. It didn’t take her long to pinpoint his location once she focused on her psychic power.

<Latios… brother, if you can hear me, please. I’m here… and we need your help. They’re…

…they’re preparing something truly horrible, and… it involves me… and you…>


Triad (The Diamond Ladies)
Meeting Room of Eon Squad HQ, Eon Squad Villa
Affected RPers: @Desolate Divine @Shruikan @Chakramaster

After Jimmy and his Pikachu had arrived, Jon had started the meeting with a strong opening that he didn’t want anything confidential to leave this meeting. Already, they had suffered numerous casualties, and there was still possibility that some of their darker secrets could be compromised if things weren’t taken seriously. The whole time, Cassandra was hoping people would take her seriously… even if she was dressed as a giant Butterfree. At this point, with the whole festival having gone to hell, she wouldn’t mind wearing something else…

Jon had covered what his team had been doing, getting to the details regarding the curses and the hybrid left behind by Brianna. Upon a closer investigation, Jon had revealed that it seemed Brianna was following her own motives, not allied with the League or with Agatha. The matter of getting her help was a question, as Jon was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“As much as I hate leaving a potential threat like her unchecked, if it means we can deal with the confirmed threat with less casualties, then I think we focus on Agatha for now, and deal with Brianna when we absolutely have to. We won’t tell her a damn thing, but won’t bite that hand either…” Steven said, “That’s assuming that the page references she gave are actually helpful?”

“Only Triad can answer that, and I will let them do that when they share what they have found out.” Jon explained, “Dylan Squire and Abbee Strauss are assigned to investigate her, and Dylan already has some solid leads, so I will leave that investigation with them.”

“Triad?” Jon asked, as he took a seat, “What did the pages say? What do we need to know before we plan our next move? And what do you need from us?”

“Yeah, we looked into this,” Cassandra replied, trying to pretend she wasn’t in costume. “Page 216 of the Zeketh tome goes into details regarding a spell called the Expavescimus Charm. It redirects spells back at the one who casted them. The reagents aren’t too difficult to get, either. That simply requires a broken mirror to be ground up into dust and mashed-up feathers from an unevolved flying Pokémon. The three of us figured those should be easy to acquire as well, as Wingull feathers are easy to find on the beach and should suffice for the spell.”

“The other spell mentioned on page 384 is called Luxum Patibatur, a curse that causes the victim to hemorrhage energy,” Cassandra further explained. “Reagents for that include human blood, ginger, and paint thinners. Should be relatively easy to acquire. Now, the method to turn these two into a hybrid, which the three of us never delved into before, is known as a Simul spell, which needs ashes of burnt paper. Before that paper is turned into ashes, it needs to have two overlapping handprints in red ink. All this together leads up to a hybrid spell that would not only redirect a spell back at the caster, but it would also make them bleed out their energy.”

“Sounds pretty brutal,” one of the other attendees replied. “Would be nice to see them get a taste of their own medicine. If every one of us was protected by this…”

Cassandra nodded, knowing that while that was the case, it wouldn’t be the knock-out punch they were likely hoping for. To her, it almost seemed too easy, and she knew that while Agatha was evil, she wasn’t stupid.

“It’s a start,” Cassandra replied. “You could take out several of Agatha’s followers with this if every one of us received this before we attacked them, but they would catch on and would know what to be on the lookout for. Once they find out what they’re dealing with, dispelling it would soon become standard protocol, so it has to be a supplement to other strategies and we need to be dynamic in how we handle this.”

“As in other hybrid protective spells?” Cynthia asked.

“To an extent, yeah,” Cassandra nodded. “Having ‘defused’ a hybrid spell myself, they’re tricky to disarm and it bears the risk of setting off one spell as you try to disarm the other. On a good day, a good six or seven of Agatha’s pawns will get wiped from this. The others will see these redirects happening and will hold their fire until they’ve been able to identify the reason and come up with possible countermeasures. But it would likely still mean we’d have to face their Pokémon while they try to discern the means to disarm this hybrid and work around it.”

“And you don’t think it would take them a while to figure it out?” one of the attendees asked.

“It could, but it’s like having a Pokémon team of only fire types or only water types,” Cassandra explained further with an analogy. “You can’t have everyone bearing the same strengths and weaknesses.”

It had led up to another question. And as Cassandra thought about it, while she didn’t trust Brianna, this hybrid spell was a starting point and was a piece of sound advice that they needed to go deeper and get creative. She had to think of other possible combinations to use with Simul and use those against Agatha and her followers. Instead of everyone having the same protection, she felt diversifying the protective spells and wards would keep Agatha and her followers guessing who was protected with what. Wasting precious time trying to discern what protections their enemies had and then scramble trying to undo them would cost them precious time and would make them lose the fight.

“Right now, reagents are the big challenge,” Cassandra told the group. “Diversifying is key, but we can’t go overboard to the point where we need mountains of reagents. So my thought is having this protective redirect spell be one among five that we can use the next time we confront Agatha. As for the other four, we’ll need to delve into the books to come up with some useful options for this situation. What I thought might also help is varying the nature of our attack.”

“As in…?” Steven asked, wondering where Cassandra was going with this.

“Some of us can attack as human trainers,” Cassandra proposed. “Others, those who are a bit braver, can be transformed into Pokémon and attack on that front, leaving Agatha and her followers guessing who is the trainer and who are the actual Pokémon. Not to mention there are far more spells made to transform humans than there are spells to transform Pokémon. And then there’s other transformations and traits that can be utilized. For those who are really brave open to the idea, preemptively transforming someone into say a pixie, a lycanthrope, or a mermaid, for example, complicates things for the other side. It forces one transformation spell to have to overwrite another. Sometimes that’s possible, sometimes it’s not, or sometimes it can be difficult and doesn’t take the first time. Given, a number of us have already been hit with spells like this and haven’t been cured, yet. Quite frankly, it’s better to keep them on if they’re bearable enough and you can still move and fight with them. It’s very easy to transform a human and most of these spells were made to do just that. But if they’re already something else, there’s a solid chance the spell may fizzle trying to transform a human when the target is not that at all.”

“This sounds bloody crazy…” One of the operatives muttered.

“I’m not denying that,” Cassandra replied. “I’m not even expecting most people to be open to some of these extremes, but I’d rather survive as something outlandish and inane to better our chances of winning this battle than be killed as a human in some horrific and unnatural way like some people experienced this afternoon. Besides, I wouldn’t transform anyone into something that we can’t undo later. This is all temporary until we’ve won. But it’s your choice, and I don’t even mind providing a list of options once we’ve worked out what we can do with reagents that I think can be within our grasp of obtaining without too much trouble.”

But with that said, Cassandra knew it was, at best, still a proposal. She could see from the looks on Steven’s and Cynthia’s faces that they weren’t so sure about this, but they weren’t about to trash the whole idea as it could very well be the least costly option, especially if everything they would do would be dismissible once the war had been won. Ultimately, Steven decided how best to react to this.

“I might need to see your list of what all of our options are, first,” Steven replied before settling on this strategy. “I’m hoping this doesn’t require us to go to extremes… but we’ll do what we must do…”

Cassandra could understand his thoughts as she knew this was something they had never considered before. But she knew that if they wanted to win against someone who could do what was once thought to be impossible…

…they would very well have to go to extremes…