11-23-2016, 12:20 PM
Sabrina was conflicted, she eyed Sarah for a few seconds without a word and only taking slowed steps as her mind raced behind her eyes.
Kerrigan was letting in on a lot, she was turning her gamble right around on her - by providing more information than she had, and essentially saying "now it's your turn". Her insectoid physique made her seem much more brute than she really was - scheming and subtle, and someone who was used to being powerful. Whatever she was, she was not human - or Terran, as she seemed to refer to non-Earth humans. But which one might she be then? Protoss, or Zerg? She had talked about the Zerg much more... extensively, in more detail and in a more emotional way, almost. As if she liked them. She had described the Protoss much more neutrally. On the other hand, that may just be an elaborate trick to make Sabrina think exactly what she wanted her to. Someone like this would have made a great admin in Team Rocket, had she been there - personality wise that is, the looks not so much. Possibly even Giovanni's right hand. In this world, she was not so sure, and that was assuming that Giovanni was around here. She had read vague reports of a figure that matched his description, but lacking any truly distinct features meant that identifying the leader of Team Rocket among unimaginable numbers of people by pure eyewitness description was an impossibility. But her thoughts were drifting off.
"I must say, that is a lot of information to digest", she openly admitted as they walked down a staircase to pass through a tunnel leading them underneath a 16-lane mega-road, one of the pulsing arteries of Coruscant. A squad of Stormtroopers met them halfway through and the leader acknowledged Sabrina with a brief nod, which she returned. Might as well... Sarah knew by now what her position was, and it couldn't hurt to prove she wasn't a fake with a little theatric display. "The humans in my world were able to send people to the moon around fifty years ago, counting from the point in time when I was brought here. We had satellites and a few other advancements, but every launch is a lengthy process. In the way of space travel your Terrans were way ahead of us. I can't imagine what it must be like to casually send prisoners off in a shuttle to get rid of them.
Anycase, about me... I'll have to actually take another excourse before I can tell you about myself. You may have the same tech developed in your world, or it may be specific to Pokemon." She reqached under the skirt piece of her dress and detached one of the empty standard Pokeballs from her reserve - the ones red at the top and white on the bottom. A press to the button in the middle turned it from ping-pong-ball to orange size, and she held it out to Sarah. "Here, have this as a little gift. I promise you it's not dangerous."
Sarah took the ball and turned it in her hand, studying it. "What is it?"
"They're called Pokeballs. A device used to... well, store Pokemon inside of. While the technology is centuries, even maybe millenia old, only in more recent years have we gotten these metallic ones. In either case, it was discovered that Pokemon can be compressed into a state of energy with next to no mass, but which preserves their being. Held in stasis, as you described it. It allows humans to tame wild Pokemon by placing them into one such Pokeball, then release them when they are needed."
"Interesting. But I imagine that they are used for more than to transport livestock around conveniently."
"Of course not. Although some people do that... the most well-known use for that is for Pokemon battles. People challenge each other based on a set of rules and regulations and have their Pokemon battle one another until they faint, until one so-called trainer runs out, maximum of six Pokemon. Not everyone respects the rules of course, but a surprising amount of people do. And seeing how unlike how Terrans may be in your home world, humans in mine have no supernatural powers and are... pretty helpless without Pokemon, even people like police officiers have a team at hand. I won't bore you with too many details, but there's the so-called Pokemon League challenge in the regions for trainers, which has them compete in a number of "Gyms" against selected trainers to prove their skill as a trainer and earn the right to challenge the Pokemon League, the most powerful trainers in the world, over the title of Champion. Any trainer worth their salt takes the League Challenge on sooner or later. Me, I was Sabrina, Gym Leader of Saffron City and known as the Master of Psychic Pokemon, though that title doesn't mean much in this place."
"Let's go back for just a second... how do these Pokeballs work?" Sarah asked as Sabrina took a moment to consider what to speak of next. Really she could tell Sarah a lot. There was only one subject to dodge, and she could skirt around it without too much difficulty. Sarah had no way of knowing of Team Rocket, and Sabrina had averted suspicion from Officier Jennys who were specifically set on investigating the group several times before.
"Oh! Of course, let me see here..." She reached for one of her Pokeballs again, then froze for a moment. Arcanine's and Slowbro's Pokeballs both had the characteristic red R on them. How would she explain that? She grabbed Arcanine's while thinking up something on the fly, and showed Sarah the Pokeball. "This one holds a Pokemon that I captured before. Don't mind the color difference, it's a paint job - though there are different types of Pokeballs, which goes a bit beyond the scope of this conversation. R stands for Ripper, I nicknamed the Pokemon inside it that way." She carefully checked that there was nobody closeby who could get hurt, then tossed the ball before them, watched it release Arcanine, and caught the now empty sphere in her hand again. Arcanine on the other hand materialized out of the white energy burst and sat before them. Sarah would have no way of knowing that its mildly darkened fur and the cold eyes were the result of a Dark Ball, not what a regular Arcanine looked like, had she not been to Cinnabar before. And if she had, she would know way more about Pokemon.
"Meet Ripper, the Arcanine. This one isn't a psychic type, but I've not had the opportunity yet to catch myself a few proper ones, so it's a placeholder until then. To catch a Pokemon, you throw the ball at them once they are a little weakened, and hope that their strength isn't sufficient to escape before the locking mechanisms tune to it. Once it's caught you can release and return it at any time." She fired a red beam from the Pokeball's tip at Arcanine, who turned into red energy at its touch and was sucked up. Sabrina placed it back, noting Sarah's interested look. So this wasn't technology that existed in her home world, huh.
"Back to me, in any case. I was born in a small town near Saffron City and discovered my dormant ESP powers when I bent a spoon as a kid. I never got much further than that, really. It let me establish a bond to Pokemon, specifically psychic ones, much stronger than a regular trainer bonds with their Pokemon, which was what ended up earning me a spot in Saffron City, as the Gym Leader. The nice thing about it is that though the League is a private insitution even the government acknowledges it and the Gym Leaders are both prominent figures in their respective cities and valued researchers in Pokemon sciences for the types of Pokemon that they are attuned to - to briefly detail it, there are various "types" that Pokemon are categorized into, each with advantages over some types and disadvantages to others. Arcanine for instance is a Fire-type, he would thus be weak to water but powerful against plants. Gyms are provided some funding that goes into research - Psychic Pokemon, in my case. We worked together with a number of leading scientists and made all sorts of advances. It was quite fun... until I got brought here anyway."She sighed and shrugged. "That about sums up my life. After I came to the Omniverse, you know what happened. Turns out that here my psychic powers are amplified to the levels of a Pokemon, too - an odd experience to be able to wield the same level of powers I could only indirectly command before, by ordering my Pokemon to. Now I search for other people from the Pokemon World, and perhaps some day I will bring the Pokemon Gyms back." She reached into her upper garment and pulled out one of the Marsh Badges, just like the one she had given to Amber a month ago. "I'm even giving these out to people who can defeat me, but right now they're little more than bragging rights sadly." She put it back, but not without noting that Sarah was eyeing the badge with visible interest. Had she just given her an excuse to request a battle?
"My life was a pretty straight line without many twists and turns, so I apologize if you were hoping for something more juicy. The best I could offer are a few anecdotes of my life as a Gym Leader, but most of them are probably going to be boring to someone who only knows hearsay about Pokemon. If you have no further questions, I'd love to hear a bit about you now."
Kerrigan was letting in on a lot, she was turning her gamble right around on her - by providing more information than she had, and essentially saying "now it's your turn". Her insectoid physique made her seem much more brute than she really was - scheming and subtle, and someone who was used to being powerful. Whatever she was, she was not human - or Terran, as she seemed to refer to non-Earth humans. But which one might she be then? Protoss, or Zerg? She had talked about the Zerg much more... extensively, in more detail and in a more emotional way, almost. As if she liked them. She had described the Protoss much more neutrally. On the other hand, that may just be an elaborate trick to make Sabrina think exactly what she wanted her to. Someone like this would have made a great admin in Team Rocket, had she been there - personality wise that is, the looks not so much. Possibly even Giovanni's right hand. In this world, she was not so sure, and that was assuming that Giovanni was around here. She had read vague reports of a figure that matched his description, but lacking any truly distinct features meant that identifying the leader of Team Rocket among unimaginable numbers of people by pure eyewitness description was an impossibility. But her thoughts were drifting off.
"I must say, that is a lot of information to digest", she openly admitted as they walked down a staircase to pass through a tunnel leading them underneath a 16-lane mega-road, one of the pulsing arteries of Coruscant. A squad of Stormtroopers met them halfway through and the leader acknowledged Sabrina with a brief nod, which she returned. Might as well... Sarah knew by now what her position was, and it couldn't hurt to prove she wasn't a fake with a little theatric display. "The humans in my world were able to send people to the moon around fifty years ago, counting from the point in time when I was brought here. We had satellites and a few other advancements, but every launch is a lengthy process. In the way of space travel your Terrans were way ahead of us. I can't imagine what it must be like to casually send prisoners off in a shuttle to get rid of them.
Anycase, about me... I'll have to actually take another excourse before I can tell you about myself. You may have the same tech developed in your world, or it may be specific to Pokemon." She reqached under the skirt piece of her dress and detached one of the empty standard Pokeballs from her reserve - the ones red at the top and white on the bottom. A press to the button in the middle turned it from ping-pong-ball to orange size, and she held it out to Sarah. "Here, have this as a little gift. I promise you it's not dangerous."
Sarah took the ball and turned it in her hand, studying it. "What is it?"
"They're called Pokeballs. A device used to... well, store Pokemon inside of. While the technology is centuries, even maybe millenia old, only in more recent years have we gotten these metallic ones. In either case, it was discovered that Pokemon can be compressed into a state of energy with next to no mass, but which preserves their being. Held in stasis, as you described it. It allows humans to tame wild Pokemon by placing them into one such Pokeball, then release them when they are needed."
"Interesting. But I imagine that they are used for more than to transport livestock around conveniently."
"Of course not. Although some people do that... the most well-known use for that is for Pokemon battles. People challenge each other based on a set of rules and regulations and have their Pokemon battle one another until they faint, until one so-called trainer runs out, maximum of six Pokemon. Not everyone respects the rules of course, but a surprising amount of people do. And seeing how unlike how Terrans may be in your home world, humans in mine have no supernatural powers and are... pretty helpless without Pokemon, even people like police officiers have a team at hand. I won't bore you with too many details, but there's the so-called Pokemon League challenge in the regions for trainers, which has them compete in a number of "Gyms" against selected trainers to prove their skill as a trainer and earn the right to challenge the Pokemon League, the most powerful trainers in the world, over the title of Champion. Any trainer worth their salt takes the League Challenge on sooner or later. Me, I was Sabrina, Gym Leader of Saffron City and known as the Master of Psychic Pokemon, though that title doesn't mean much in this place."
"Let's go back for just a second... how do these Pokeballs work?" Sarah asked as Sabrina took a moment to consider what to speak of next. Really she could tell Sarah a lot. There was only one subject to dodge, and she could skirt around it without too much difficulty. Sarah had no way of knowing of Team Rocket, and Sabrina had averted suspicion from Officier Jennys who were specifically set on investigating the group several times before.
"Oh! Of course, let me see here..." She reached for one of her Pokeballs again, then froze for a moment. Arcanine's and Slowbro's Pokeballs both had the characteristic red R on them. How would she explain that? She grabbed Arcanine's while thinking up something on the fly, and showed Sarah the Pokeball. "This one holds a Pokemon that I captured before. Don't mind the color difference, it's a paint job - though there are different types of Pokeballs, which goes a bit beyond the scope of this conversation. R stands for Ripper, I nicknamed the Pokemon inside it that way." She carefully checked that there was nobody closeby who could get hurt, then tossed the ball before them, watched it release Arcanine, and caught the now empty sphere in her hand again. Arcanine on the other hand materialized out of the white energy burst and sat before them. Sarah would have no way of knowing that its mildly darkened fur and the cold eyes were the result of a Dark Ball, not what a regular Arcanine looked like, had she not been to Cinnabar before. And if she had, she would know way more about Pokemon.
"Meet Ripper, the Arcanine. This one isn't a psychic type, but I've not had the opportunity yet to catch myself a few proper ones, so it's a placeholder until then. To catch a Pokemon, you throw the ball at them once they are a little weakened, and hope that their strength isn't sufficient to escape before the locking mechanisms tune to it. Once it's caught you can release and return it at any time." She fired a red beam from the Pokeball's tip at Arcanine, who turned into red energy at its touch and was sucked up. Sabrina placed it back, noting Sarah's interested look. So this wasn't technology that existed in her home world, huh.
"Back to me, in any case. I was born in a small town near Saffron City and discovered my dormant ESP powers when I bent a spoon as a kid. I never got much further than that, really. It let me establish a bond to Pokemon, specifically psychic ones, much stronger than a regular trainer bonds with their Pokemon, which was what ended up earning me a spot in Saffron City, as the Gym Leader. The nice thing about it is that though the League is a private insitution even the government acknowledges it and the Gym Leaders are both prominent figures in their respective cities and valued researchers in Pokemon sciences for the types of Pokemon that they are attuned to - to briefly detail it, there are various "types" that Pokemon are categorized into, each with advantages over some types and disadvantages to others. Arcanine for instance is a Fire-type, he would thus be weak to water but powerful against plants. Gyms are provided some funding that goes into research - Psychic Pokemon, in my case. We worked together with a number of leading scientists and made all sorts of advances. It was quite fun... until I got brought here anyway."She sighed and shrugged. "That about sums up my life. After I came to the Omniverse, you know what happened. Turns out that here my psychic powers are amplified to the levels of a Pokemon, too - an odd experience to be able to wield the same level of powers I could only indirectly command before, by ordering my Pokemon to. Now I search for other people from the Pokemon World, and perhaps some day I will bring the Pokemon Gyms back." She reached into her upper garment and pulled out one of the Marsh Badges, just like the one she had given to Amber a month ago. "I'm even giving these out to people who can defeat me, but right now they're little more than bragging rights sadly." She put it back, but not without noting that Sarah was eyeing the badge with visible interest. Had she just given her an excuse to request a battle?
"My life was a pretty straight line without many twists and turns, so I apologize if you were hoping for something more juicy. The best I could offer are a few anecdotes of my life as a Gym Leader, but most of them are probably going to be boring to someone who only knows hearsay about Pokemon. If you have no further questions, I'd love to hear a bit about you now."
"(Note to self: insert quote & picture once I find stuff)"
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