PEFE Goldenrod, storagehouse rooftop

-Pokéteco tilts his head about 160° listening to Keys, and then he just stays in that position-

-...for a loooong while-

"Yes, that's a good consideration. Follow me, then, we should be able to find someone available [shortly]."

-He turns to the interns-

"And you guys continue working!"

-Maekrite gives the interns a leer then hang on to Silent's hair-

-Pokéteco, his head still 160° around, politely points a wing to the stairwell for the humans to get down-

PEFE Goldenrod, Lobby

-Silent shows Ren the way inside, and gives Ren a laynard for access to the study wings. Pokéteco is flying alongside the group, whereas Algira stays outside to chat with Lemures-

Physiological Research Wing

-Silent walks Ren and his team around, showing various groups of staff and interns and the fields they work in-

"…always useful to know why exactly the ability activates and what the heck does it do," he comments as they walk besides a room where a couple Croagunk and Toxicroak seem to be playing card games.

-Next room seems to be tightly sealed, and there are various screens and gauges outside that some inspectors seem to be watching closely. Inside, five kids can be see sitting inside some sort of cabin module, wearing special data gathering suits connected to the rooftop by thick wires-

"…indicating growth of the spatial reasoning abilities that allow a higher link to our Pokémon in-battle, which might be related to Mega Evolution."

-He continues showcasing various rooms where some non-descript experiments are taking place, but seems to hesitate when he reaches a translucid wall that seems to lead to a water tank-

"…and between that and Lileep causing some troubles, yeah, we've had to relocate the Feebas tank."

-He turns to Ren-

"So, what do you think so far? See anyone you'd like?"

"Hmmm... assistance from a Psychic-type..."

Maekrite -sniffs: <Hey, he does have a point.>

-Silent walks back a bit and takes a look at the room with the kids, crosses his arms-

"Hmmm... I know who are you talking about, yes... I can't recall everyone's name but I do know it starts with M. He's a new hire though, which might be a concern as perhaps he doesn't have the required experience. I'll tell you, though-" -- smirks -- "people here learn fast."

-With that, Silent walks to the part of the corridor in front of the cabin testing room, motioning for Ren to follow him. He goes to one of the inspectors and talks to him briefly for a moment, in a low enough voice so as to not bring distractions; as soon as that's done however the inspector nods and moves aside, leaving the entrance for Silent and Ren-

-to Ren-

"Okay, I'll call him in. You'll be the judge of how adequate he is for this project, Ren."

-turns to the window and waves his hand in front of it, causing a Hard Light panel to appear and a small symbol to light up green-

"[Mr. Mendel], could you come outside please?"

-Maekrite can't help but sweatdrop at Mendel's eloquent response-

"Oookay, yes, greetings..." -- shakes hands and all that -- "An honour to meet you too. And you guys." -nods to the Spoink.

Maekrite -to Pearl: <Oh that's okay,> -- waves a paw -- <mom says Silent was like that too. So... which one of you guys is the Starter?>

-Silent steps aside and arranges the introduction-

"Well, yes, Mendel... this is Renard, and these are his Pokémon, Kitsune and Rio. Up my head is Maekrite, and the bird at the far end of the corridor is Pokéteco."

-Maekrite flattens himself on Silent's hair and waves a paw. Were Mendel to look at the far end of the corridor he would see Pokéteco with his head still tilted 160°.-

"Ren's at the moment an attaché to PEFE and he's here with a very interesting proposal for [research] on Pokémon communication, on which he would like your input. Bear in mind though, this is going to be novel research, no matter what you hear from Devon."

-to Ren, about the fanclub thing-

"Honestly? I haven't the faintest. I'm guessing it's a PEFE founders thing, then, yes. We could always use the attention as an organization though."

-to Ren-

"Oh dear… Well, I think that can be unambiguously taken as willingness to take part in the experiments."

Maekrite: <Oh they're ready to begin then. This might be fun to watch.> -- to Hertz -- <Wait really? You are?> ._.

-to Mendel-

"Okay then, drop what you are doing, come with us for a small meeting, Ren will give you a briefing and from there you'll decide what do you need to set up a testing environment and I'll make it happen, I guess..."

-Silent hands Mendel a card with digital credentials to access the meeting rooms-

Ílex Forest Shrine, more or less today-ish

A small group of Pokémon, mostly grass-types and Zubats, are fiddling with various branches and things around the Celebi Shrine. A Bayleef can be seen pacing around, giving some instructions to the other Pokémon, who can be seen gathering materials and trying to patch a couple of holes and cracks in the Shrine's wooden roof.

[Celebi] itself floats around behind the Bayleef, somewhat amused with the efforts of the wild Pokémon to refurbish its home.

Bayleef -turns to Celebi, bows: <…We should be finished shortly, if these Pokémon decide to cease lazying around.>

Celebi -sternly: <Well I'll have my shrine well tidied in time then.>

-The Bayleef looks at Celebi with a somewhat puzzled expression betrayed in his face-

Bayleef: <With all honesty, master, you could have called us sooner. With what happened because of the little bird…>

-Celebi, in response, waves a hand and floats to its shrine-

Celebi: <Why put pressure on things? We have the right amount of time.> -- calls to the Bayleef -- <You should not stress your minions more or they are going to slip and wreck things more, I'm going to say.>

Bayleef: <It's... well, I guess I'm used to it.> -walks in, motioning some of the working mons to move aside. -- <We just want this finished for you, master.>

-Celebi floats around his home, chatting with a couple of Zubats who are inspecting the wood and some other materials, and giving its input on where will it like the ornaments to be placed.-

-After a while, a couple of Pidgey fly in into the clearing, one of them circling above the Shrine-

Scout Pidgey: <We have humans from the north!>

Bayleef -looks at Celebi, who doesn't seem to react, then turns around: <Okay everyone! Drop what you are doing!>

-All mons start evacuating the premises, taking the materials with them. Celebi hovers before the Bayleef and gives a couple of instructions-

Celebi: <Hey, it did happen sooner than expected, I think? But worry not.> -- points to the still to be finished shrine -- <This should do nicely.>

-The Bayleef sighs then decides to not argue the point (not like he's going to win, anyway) and turns away, rushing to hide between the bushes-

Celebi graciously hovers around for a moment, allowing itself to fall closer to the Shrine.

Celebi: <Oh and you are one to not believe your eyes. But I am here, will be for a while...>

-it dances around getting closer to Locke-

<I am Celebi as you can probably guess. Who do I meet here in the quietness of my shrine?>

Ilex Shrine

-Celebi openly giggles after hearing the No Monese part-

Celebi: <Should have figured it out myself~>

-Celebi reacts to the hand trying to grab it by emitting an eerie sound; after letting itself be touched just barely, Celebi flies a short distance out of reach and bats its wings in Locke's direction, releasing a small orb of psychic energy that flies just by Locke's neck and crashes against the trees behind-

-After that, Celebi engages in some telepathy-

Celebi: «Yes I have this form of communication, and I would advise you not to try that again. Never know when someone around tries to approach you with a Dark Ball.»

-It floats around in a slightly more conceited manner-

«What do you want? What brings you here?»

-Celebi observes with some curiosity as Locke offers a chocolate bar. He dances in place for a moment, as if wondering why or how. What did the Celebi pondered could as well be a mystery for the ages. Could it be if the guy here took this idea from the tales about the Lucario up north, or could it be if the chocolate was poisoned, or could it be why would the human bring up a chocolate to a plant-type sprite deity.-

-In the end though Celebi decided not to bother. An offering is an offering. The thing offered can be dealt with afterwards. When one is hungry or at lack of energy, for example.-

Celebi -telepatically, after a loud, simple call: «Oh chocolate! Admittedly one of the few truly marvelous things of recent history.»

-And proceeds to grab the chocolate bar with a premeditated, cautious gesture-

«Fine then Locke the Human. Your offering is accepted. I would invite you to come in and look around but… I had actually not planned for this~»

-and floats aside to let Locke observe the Shrine, its pecked roof still in repairs-

Celebi -blinks: <…"Bound?">

-The sprite Legendary pronounced this clearly in Monese and it took it a couple f moments to recall that Locke didn't understand the language. It reared back and then forth playfully before engaging in telepathy again-

«Heh, sorry...» -- does the telepathic equivalent of a giggle, barely reflected in its physical features -- «it's just you, all of you creatures without the ability to perceive the undecim dimension...» -- it looks at its surroundings, staring at the directions the various Pokémon left for a while -- «still somehow make complicated questions sometimes. If you want to know...»

-Celebi dances around, pointing with a hand to the sky-

«This is the Shrine of Ilex, dedicated to the legendary Pokémon that protects this forest across time. But it's only mostly a Shrine, and a place for me to connect with the world. I have my home, it's in a Pokéball, like many Pokémon do, and it's currently under care of a Trainer. One of whose Pokémon unfortunately did what you see… though at least that has gained me new minions.»

-Celebi returns its attention to Locke, hovering around him and herding him around the place-

«And I like this place… I love it, as it has been, as it will be. After all, you have been here, what do you think of this forest?»

At PEFE Goldenrod, before

(continuing from this post by Keys)

-Maekrite leans his head to the side as Hertz mentions its origin as a Starter-

Maekrite☼: <Hnf... accidents.>

-The gesture could be understood as disingeuous or even demeaning by someone who knew of Maekrite's history. He just buffs and, knowing Silent would be glaring-

-Silent meanwhile amuses himself watching as Mendel has to be led towards the chair to be able to interact with it-

"Well..." -blushing slightly- "I'm not really sure what to make of that."

Maekrite☼: <What I make is that you'd be better with him around than with your lazy interns. The scaredly one is the only one doing real job and he's not even around here.>

-This time Silent does glare at him for voicing such an opinion on Silent's interns, but Maekrite simply shrugs it off-

-Silent follows the two to the room and stands there, listens to the question-

"Mic and installing privileges? Hmmm..."

-Maekrite pats him on the head-

Maekrite☼: <You know I know what you're thinking of!>

-Silent nods, turns to Ren-

"I think I have exactly the things, hang on..."

-And leaves for a moment, leaving Ren and Mendel to their technical chat; returning a few minutes later with two, yes TWO boxes. One larger and with a PEFE logo, handed over to Mendel, and the other smaller and thicker, handed over to Ren-

"…Couldn't get you a PEFEgon, Mendel, since they are being patched because of the newest series of CVEs in their shellcode. But in the meantime I think you'll like this?"

Maekrite☼ -to Ren: <Hey, look at that!>

-And presents a box that when opened would reveal a PEFE laptop, with designs based on a Pokémon of Ren's choosing in the meta-

-Ren's box, were it to be opened, would reveal a smaller, handheld device not unlike a Pokédex, and a supercompact leg platform with sensors and various things, that looks ready to attach to a Pokémon-

-Silent sits at the third of the n-th side of the table. He points to the leg platform.-

"It's a special data and sample gathering module. Attach it to a Pokémon or to yourself, go around, and it will assist in sorting out or reading some small things. It has an Everything Sensor incorporated to assist your Pokémon's senses in the field. And it has its own evacuation submodule that transforms it into a drone and flies away with the gathered samples in case something goes wrong."

-Maekrite meanwhile takes notice that Mendel is still stuck in his Happy Place™. The Nidoran makes himself useful though by leaping down and picking up the power charger for the laptop, then goes to plug it-

Maekrite☼: <Let's see if that wakes him up.> -- leaps by Mendel and presses the POWERUP button.

-Silent looks at the entire thing, half amused, then turns back to Ren-

"It might be useful gathering information about the body language of a Pokémon to generate information for translations, among other things. And otherwise just feel free to use it in the meantime."

-Maekrite meanwhile waves his paw in front of Mendel-