From: Continue (continue2@mindspring.com) Subject: [PW!] What do you do? (no hostages to shoot) Newsgroups: alt.games.nintendo.pokemon Date: 2001-08-02 19:36:43 PST Adrian Tymes wrote: >Nick -New and Improved- wrote: >> [Oh... then... there should be a plan... yeah... until then, all I can do is >> move the plot along.] > >["Move along, nothing to see here." ^_^;;;] [Tries to divert people's attention from the exploding fireworks factory.] >Almost as if fate smiled on him, Dee continued, "Tell you what, I've >got a few errands to run while I'm in this town. I'll meet you at the >pokemon center in an hour or so. Just drop off your keys at the front >desk to check out, but make sure you've got all your gear first." He >almost seemed to melt into the shadows as he withdrew from the >doorway, leaving the group in an uneasy silence. Although it was in >fact only a few seconds, the unease in the air seemed to stretch this >into minutes. All three jumped slightly when the door abruptly clicked >shut, breaking the spell. "Well, we should probably let you in on what we've got." Damian told Hito once everyone was settled in again. "I noticed something in the Pokemon Center yesterday and told Sarah Jane I would fill her in later. Put these on." While he gave the command he removed his sunglasses and handed them to Hito. Hito looked at the sunglasses for a moment before putting them on, making sure not jab Lokon with them. "Okay, so it's a bit darker in here. Now what?" Damian sighed "Hold on a sec. I can retrieve an image from the memory." He tapped the LCD pad on his arm in a halting but certain sequence. Hito started when, without warning, she was looking at any entirely different scene. It was a still image of the Pokemon Center that they had been in yesterday. Everything was painted in shades of red and white and two people were in the view, one appeared to be nearby, the other was further away. "You're the one closer one in the image, Dee is the one farther away. Do you notice anything strange about him?" Hito looked, but other than being painted in brighter colors, Dee didn't look unusual. She noticed that her image was also pretty bright. She figured she might study the image awhile and see something, but with the way Damian was talking, it seemed like he would be perfectly willing to point it out to her. Considering that Dee whad mentioned meeting them in an hour, she figured it would be better just to ask this time. "Nothing jumps out at me. What should I be noticing?" "It'll make more of an impact if you see it. That's what I saw because the sensors were still set to infrared from the tunnel. Let me show a thermovision version." Another sequence was pecked out on the LCD and the image shifted slightly. Most everything was now gray, but Dee was still painted in white and red. Her own image had a few more colors. "I'm the one who's different here. I've got green and blue where my clothes are." "Yeah, that's it, but Dee isn't, right?" Hito shook her head in response to Damian's question and he continued. "Clothes are an insulating layer. The extra matter absorbs the heat given off by the body, letting alot less of it get out. From what we're seeing, he couldn't be wearing any clothes, but it looked like he was to us. His clothing would have to be part of him to look like that." Handing the sunglasses back to Damain, something said yesterday came back to her "Dee said that a pokedex that was pointed to him would register a Ditto because his clothes were made from a Ditto." "If they were, they would still be an insulating layer. Even if the Ditto were still alive somehow, its heat pattern would show an inconsistency in his pattern, which wasn't there." Damian explained. "I was a pretty strong idea of who Dee is on the way to Elm's lab, based on some info I saw from the time I've been with Silph. When Elm made his slip, I was certain." Thinking back to yesterday, Hito recalled "I remember Professor Elm saying 'Dop' before catching himself." "Which is the final piece of the puzzle." Sarah Jane supplied "A Ditto named Doppler went on a rampage that caused massive amounts of destruction to several cities about when Damian and I started our first pokemon journey. We didn't hear much about it at the time we were on our journey, though." Damian picked up "Silph's files state that Doppler was primarily responsible for forming a group called the Pokemon Resistance. It's labelled as a terrorist organization in their files, but people's opinion varied. Eventually there was a schism in the group which caused most of the members to end up working with Silph. They're the reason that Silph started making more 'humane' pokeballs, like some of what I'm testing. Doppler was among the few who didn't end up working with Silph. He felt betrayed and went into hiding according to the files." Wondering how Damian had access to such files may have been a consideration in Hito's mind, but other things were of more pressing concern. "If Dee really is this Doppler, what should we do? Should we try to get away and get someone to help?" Damian shook his head "Being a Ditto, if he wanted to find us before we got to someone, he could change into a form to track us and catch us before we made it there." "With as much psychic ability as he has," Sarah Jane added "he wouldn't need to change forms to track us by psychic imprint." "What could we do if he goes after us?" Hito asks, now cradling Lokon. "Not alot," Damian answers "Silph's files said that he's already been killed. He got better." Damian paused for Hito's wide-eyed reaction. With his reaction remaining serious, that was the only reaction she gave. "I probably have the best shot if he does anything. The storage matrix on for my duffel bag doesn't have any extras, so it's containment ability is as good as a Masterball. Nothing could escape it. I wouldn't want to use it unless I was certain that he was trying to kill us because it doesn't have those extras. It just doesn't have the protection for the highly dynamic patterns of something that's alive. It's almost certain that the pattern of something like a Ditto would be destroyed without those protections." "We also don't know if he's any more harmful than anyone else at this point." Sarah Jane pointed out. "He's lied to us, but that was to conceal his identity. From what we're talking about right now, we can see the reason why he might not share that with just anyone, especially since one of us does work for Silph." She looked over at Damian to emphasize the point. In return he shrugged and his t-shirt read "We didn't start the fire, or the Godzilla impressions." Sarah Jane continued her reasoning "He also reacts strongly against putting pokemon in pokeballs, but he's not exactly the only one who objects to putting pokemon in pokeballs." Sarah Jane locked eyes with Hito for this. Hito nodded in recognition and stroked Lokon. "Of the few emotions that have gotten by his safeguards, none of them that I've sensed have ever been those of someone who meant us harm." "Professor Elm also gave us more evidence that we may have nothing to be concerned about." Damian reasoned "He knows who Doppler is and was completely unconcerned when he knew that Doppler was sneaking up on him when we were in the lab. That's the kind of reaction you don't get without complete trust." "Professor Elm could have been hypnotised into trusting Dee. We saw he had no problem doing it to Nurse Joy." Hito pointed out. Sarah Jane shook her head "I would have felt that. I've felt it on pokemon who have had it done to them for therapy. Their reactions feel stunted and Professor Elm didn't feel anything like that." There was a brief pause and Hito finally asked "Should we let Dee know that we know he's Doppler, then? Just to get it out of the way?" Damian and Sarah Jane looked at each other, exchanging uncertain glances. "We don't know." Sarah Jane responded. "It may not make any difference," Damian said as he got up "For all we know he could've been listening at the door during our whole conversation." He crossed the room and came to the door, putting his hand on the knob on open it. <TBC> >> [I checked, its from gold. Silver has some interesting revelations about Ditto >> too... can be used with Hito's distrust of Dee... though finding a way to work >> that may be hard. Eh... I'll leave it alone, for a bit.] > >[Well...laughing, by itself, may be a bit OOC for Dee in most >situations. And even when it isn't, a meltdown isn't automatic - >especially if Hito plans to use it as proof of Dee's nature. ^_-] This is just reminding me too much of a line from one issue of X-Factor. Jeff Hauser* *Sig Sold Seperately