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Zero Kiryu     NEO TOKYO
    AFTER THE APOCALYPSE...

The outer edges of Neo Tokyo are a nightmare of not-quite-freshly devastated urban sprawl. Whatever happened wasn't decades ago, and couldn't have been more than a few years for that matter. It looks as if something bombed the edges of the city to the foundations, the sea sweeping in underneath to flood the lower levels of the buildings that still stand. Skyscrapers join smaller buildings in the desolation.

Farther inland, there are cleared roads, but none that lead far out of the city. Even where the roads are usable, they're often filled with debris or the husks of vehicles destroyed in some inadvisable incident or another. Banners can be found scattered about the city-- most of them declare the NEW TOKYO EMPIRE, but there are a few minor gangs scattered here and there with control of a block, perhaps two.

To put it simply, life here obviously sucks. Even in the regions where the buildings are fully intact, there's an air of danger. Scavengers are everywhere, and encounters with others almost always have one or two results-- they think you're weak enough to risk accosting, or they think you're strong enough to avoid. The inbetweens are rare. Nobody passes each other on the street without a minimal level of wariness or hostility.

Here and there, strangely-dressed people with scraggly hair and banner-like hoods that display a single eye stand upon telephone poles, apparently scouting their surroundings with some sort of enhanced perceptions. With the exception of those trying to pass unnoticed with extraordinary abilities to do so, they always seem to catch sight at quite a distance. Their reactions aren't subtle.

Gatherings of people within the controlled territories of gangs feel halfway between food lines at a poor house, and a prison full of inmates. People are ragged and tired, and don't really seem to want to be there.

Occasional disputes are interrupted by individuals with what are most definitely psionic powers-- feeble ones, but not so feeble they can't intimidate ordinary folks into behaving.

The leader of this territory is the mightiest of the psychics here, and supposedly the part that Zero needs recovered is in his territory. Overhead, visible even in the daytime, is the moon. A great hole has been gouged out of it, a ring of debris surrounding it now from where it was viciously attacked by something. Its odd, closer position probably has something to do with the flooding...

    CHOICES:

    - Take the psychic device back by force.
    - Attempt recruitment.
Guzma Guzma sucks in a breath as he walks by. This place is a dump. An apocalypse, huh? Some psychic 'manchild' blowing up the moon? Well, Guzma doesn't want to go in swinging as a first answer, but he has no idea who actually their target is. They need the part back, though.

The white-haired gangster walks through the streets, hands in his pockets, Pokeballs in his jacket. If someone tries to fight him, his posse comes in - the Team Skull Trio - and starts signing, trying to get them to back off. If it goes to blows, one of the bruisers of the team, like Pinsir, is sent out to do some damage or scare them off.

Hopefully, it never comes to that, as the Team Skull Boss sniffs. Guzma moves to step the bortder over the target territory, looking up at the psychic monitors only to acknowledge to them that, yes, he sees them, no, he doesn't care.

"I think we should go all in peaceful-like. Negotiate. If they won't negotiate, well, the five of us should be able to solve it. Especially with you around, Director." It's probably obvious that he feels lucky to have one of his bosses working with him. Real respect.

"Rapp, send out Zubat. Scout ahead for the device and the leader." "You got it, boss!"

Zubat is sent out with a toss of a Pokeball, the small flying bat screeching with echolocation to find the 'most important part' of the territory, or alternatively, signs of the device, screech, and fly back as rapidly as possible. Hopefully, this helps guide the group.
Yuuki Kuran A land of people who would rather stab you than look at you. Those that oozed power ignored or avoided, those that oozed weakness were preyed upon and waylaid.

A land of darkness, where the light no longer shone from the moon, nor reflected off the eyes of the citizenry. A world of bread lines and oppression.

Dang, Zero, we already live in hellworld, you didn't need to send us here too!

"It's just like home, except worse... More open." Yuuki sighs, at Guzma's side, a frown growing into bloom on her face. "The people don't live in vague fear, but depressing reality. Well, I suppose the council can be right once or twice. Stopped clock, was that the saying? A stopped clock is right once a day?"

Yuuki asks this of Guzma, but her attention is clearly on the banner-bearing observers.

"We should move quickly."
Zero Kiryu Despite the fantastic damage that was done to the moon, and even the sorry state of the city, most of it doesn't look like it was purposeful up close. The epicentre of the destruction is near the center of the city, where two classic implosions went off and simply sphere-cratered a significant portion of the city there. The tidal effects of the moon, combined with deterioration of the government, seems to have naturally worn away the rest. It can't have been in this state for more than a year or two. A few months, at the outside edge of recent.

The Bird Man observing Guzma from afar ... leaves? He leaps down from the lamp post he is perched ominously on -- no, not in a Cool Shojo Way, in a weird animalistic way -- disappearing down the streets without another word. It's not long after that there's a faint buzz on the air, vehicles that look like sleds hovering along the deteriorated skyscrapers in the broad direction of Guzma and Yuuki.

<< The device is in the basement of the tallest building in your line of sight. >> Zero advises. The building he's referring to is near the center of the territory of the NEW TOKYO EMPIRE, with banners strung frequently across streets. There /is/ a sense of life here, but it has that same prison-like feeling as the food lines that were passed.

One street has a bunch of clown-themed gangs roaring down it on motorcycles.

Zubat flits through the surroundings unimpeded. Nobody is interested in a bat. The city itself... apart from rubble... isn't a challenge to navigate, and with the sort of abilities and tools at your disposal isn't a problem. A few trios of punks size Yuuki up but, perhaps not realizing that she's the more threatening of the two, seem to lose interest because of /her/ trio of punks.

In response to Yuuki's observation, Zero responds, << No. This must be what it was like, before... ours has had time to rebuild. >>

After a short while, a small /fleet/ of the hovering sleds, tipped with gatling guns, descend from the direction of the central skyscraper. Off steps a... young japanese man in a suit. He looks a little put-upon and stress, and as all the appearance of a teenager who fell in with a gang of wannabe yakuzas and somehow ended up being the second-in-command to some lunatic psychic juggernaut.

"And who are /you/ guys? This is New Tokyo Empire territory. We already told the Americans we don't want their help." The stressed-out young man asks. Some of the men on the sleds are very... strange looking. They're not the ones manning the guns, either. One looks grotesquely muscular, like he's been juicing all his life. Another looks dreamy and distant, but coolly confident in all potential outcomes.

The guys manning the guns just look like randoms who could be trusted to fly a sled with a minigun on it.
Guzma "Yeah." Guzma replies to Yuuki as she says the saying. "They need help." He adds, but doesn't offer to give it to them. It'd damage his image, in his mind, but...

Well, there's the minigun sleds. His eyes widen, as Tupp, Rapp, and Zipp say in unison. "So cool!"

Guzma tsks, and speaks as he's approached. "Guzma of Team Skull, Concord member. Off-worlder, of course. Here for Multiversal business. We don't want to fight you, but you've got something that belongs to us. We need it back."

He's a bit scared, but he's not showing it casually. Those are miniguns, and he has no way to not get shredded except to send out a Pokemon, or crouch and hide behind Yuuki, which he would never do.

"So, if we can talk to whoever's in charge of stuff like that, well, that'd be swell for everyone."

There's undertones of 'you really don't want to fight us, guy'.

Meanwhile, Zubat continues scouting ahead. It moves towards the tall building, and looks for a crack in a window or a wall. Once it finds one, it begins echolocating, scanning for how many people are around here. At the very first sign of potential violence, it flees, but hopefully, with an idea of how many 'moving things' there are.
Yuuki Kuran Yuuki looks dumbly at the announcing sort. "He's a pacific islander. I'm from the area around... Sweeden." She replies, with the mild but present offense at any pretty white person in the post-apocalypse being from America. Perish the thought! Her ancestors didn't literally and figuratively exist for hundreds of years as the god-kings of the world in Europe to be called American! Canadian *at worst*!

<< I still don't like it. This sort of open use of power is abuse, not society. It's tasteless. >> Her mindvoice rings out, sharply. Unlike her speaking voice, there's much less softness in it. The blow isn't padded.

"You're all very competent people, and the air here makes me think power is all that you recognize: so, please, understand that we will not leave, we are not here to bargain from a position of begging weakness, and that force is the only way to make us reconsider."

She gestures broadly towards Juiceman, The Man Who Clearly Juices and his dreaming companion. "Send out your best so we can get this over with. Yes, I want the best, yes, I really mean it, no, I will not come back later."

She smiles politely, with a gentle tilt of her head that causes her hair to cascade around her shoulder. "Now, please."
Zero Kiryu "Ah, shit..." The second-in-command glances back towards the tower behind him. At the top, the structure has been cleared to have a semi-open floor, with one corner of it deliberately collapsed to create a sort of deck, while the rest of the interior is largely intact. It doesn't look nice, but it's not hard to imagine somebody in these surroundings thinking of that as 'pretty nice'. He runs his hand through his hair and looks between Yuuki and Guzma.

Both of them, who are fairly well-versed in predators sizing people up, can tell that this guy doesn't /really/ think he can take them on. But, he's still a lot more scared of the guy in the tower than he is of them.

"Look... the boss isn't in great shape. I don't mean that he's /weak/," the second says, speeding up hastily at the end, "but all the psychics take some medicine to help them control their powers. For these guys--"

He flicks a hand at Huge Man, the Huge Man who has been re-named to Juice Man, The Man That Clearly Juices,, "It's not a big deal. But /that/ guy's power is so big that he needs an elephant's worth of medicine to relax. Otherwise his powers run wild. You'd think that'd make it a lot easier to deal with him, but it really just means when he acts out shit like that happens."

The second-in-command nods at the moon.

<< Well... it is the sort of thing we worked to put down. >>

Consequently, the guy is utterly baffled at Yuuki's decision that she is just going to beat his psychic man-child boss and be about her business. He makes an exasperated noise like he, in fact, has had to deal with one too many power transitions to like how this goes /either/ way.

"Hey. You. Go back and tell the boss, I... guess." The second-in command says to one of the outlying flying sled pilots. With a rather panicked look, the man at the sled shakily nods and begins to ascend towards the top of the tallest building.

"That guy's not our best." He adds, jerking a thumb towards Juice Man.

Juice Man is too roided out to look anything but like he's incredibly constipated at all times, so this makes no difference in his outward demeanor.
Guzma Guzma immediately moves to let Yuuki lead after thst sharp mindvoice. He plays enforcer, probably tipping off that Yuuki is in charge. And then, as the sled flies off to alert the boss, Zubat returns from scouting, and is returned to its Pokeball.

"So, if this goes messy, you guys have a recommended fighting area? Just checkin'." It's as laid back as he can get while still tense.
Yuuki Kuran Yuuki seems pleased when the lieutenant summons 'the boss', and immediately confused when Guzma backs off. "Guzma? Is there something wrong?"

She seems genuinely confused!

"Oh, is it--" She squints at him. "You think I'm--" Her eyes narrow further, a light red glow illuminating behind her eyelids.

"Oh! No no! No no no." She waves her hands disarmingly at Guzma, laughing at the one-sided conversation she was having with him. "I just sound like that, I think. You can feel free to lead, I'm sure it'll be good for you to be at the fore. It gets pretty tiring, after a while, but a hunger can keep you there. Are you hungry, Guzma?"

Yuuki is clearly not meaning in the sense of 'wanting a sandwich'.

"Thank you for understanding. Is there a place you'd prefer we handle our battle for subjugation, or..."

She looks around. "Do we do it right here? Should I ask your boss, instead?"