Act 58: Tour of Truth
As always, there is always some paperwork for the Meowstic to do, these days it feels like the load is getting light somewhat. Maybe he should go to Ara's place again tomorrow or so if he gets the chance...The drone ringing then gets Stic's attention, causing him to look to it. "Huh? What's this noise it is doing?" He hopes it's nothing bad.

Khaako's image appears in front of him. 
"Hello Stic." She greets, though her tone is a little... darker than normal.

By her tone he can already tell it's not something good. "What are the Grove planing this time?"

"Nothing." She says in response. "It's not the Grove this time." She's hesitating over something, that much seems obvious.

He raises a brow. "Then?"

"Tell me..." She begins. "Have you ever wondered... Where does it all come from? This 'nobility' nonsense and Iron and everything?" She asks.

Well now this is unexpected, why is this topic vital right now? "Everyday..." He said with a sigh.

"... Do you want to know the answer to that?"

Now it's starting to sound more intriguing, though also giving him a bad feeling. "...Yes."

"Then.. Well, let me answer that with another question. What do you know about the 'Black Isle', out in the place you call 'Oracle Sea'?"

"I have heard of the Oracle Sea, but not anything about a 'Black Isle.' "

"Hmmm. Curious. The run down of it is this." Khaako tells him. "Before we investigated it ourselves, it was a place in the sea where it constantly stormed, and no mon ever returned alive from. There were a lot of rumors about it. Some about it being a haven to a clandestine group of pirates, some saying it belonged to a weird cult that sacrificed whoever drew near to dark gods. Some say it was populated by a cult of pirates. Some say the Iron King lived there, or that he was buried there."
She gives a small 'hmph' at those last two.
"Well, I suppose in a roundabout way those last two were true. Anyway, back to the point. The point is, that the truth... is far darker. And, well, let me go on record in saying that this is not really my idea. But... Well, the base commander of Sandgun feels it is necessary for you to see this. To go there and learn the story of that place first hand, and with it, learn what we learned about where this all started."

"...I understand, alright I will be there." The cat's curiosity can't be contained anymore. Did they really find out the origin of the Iron King? Will it disprove everything he read about him thus far? These papers will have to wait for a moment now. The Meowstic hurries out of the war room and starts going straight for the teleporter.

This time, the teleporter does not take him to Sandgun base. It takes him to another place. A place with rusted, dreary iron walls. As soon as he appears, something menacing drops down from the ceiling, something that appeared as a black bubble before but is now sporting a barrel .A barrel similar to some of the Avali weapons he's seen, but more round, and more black. A bright red light blinks on the side, before turning green. The... whatever it is... retreats back into the ceiling, hiding back in its little black dome.
"Ah... you must be Stic." He hears a voice from his right.

He was immediately taken aback when he saw he was in a completely different place to what he expected. He was practically frozen in place throughout the whole thing until his voice spoke, which made him gasp in surprise and turn to his right to look at its source.

Standing there is a white colored avali with a long ponytail-like array of feathers emanating from her head. 
"My name is Nezami, and I am the commander of Black Isle base... Or as we call it around here, The Rust Bucket." She says warmly.

Oh so it is another Avali? What a relief. "It is...a pleasure to meet you." He is getting calmer now. "So this is the Black Isle? I'm in the Oracle Sea?" He is amazed by how far he got sent so quickly, he could never hope to match teleportation at such a level.

"Yes. Quite far out from Sandstone." She says. "I presume you already saw the... 'greeter' when you came in." She looks up at the bubble on the ceiling. "There was a time, not too long ago before we took possession of this island, that there turret would have ripped you to shreds. If not it, then all the other automated security here." 

That thing on the ceiling did give him a scare, to be honest. "How long has this place been here?"

"From what we've been able to gather, A little over a century..." Nezami replies. "However, it's been abandoned, save for the overactive security bots, for most of that time." She motions for Stic to follow her as she turns around, intending on leading him throughout the facility.

The Meowstic begins following right behind the Avali. "And what exactly does this place have to do with the Iron King?"

"We'll get to that." She says. "But first, it's important to know what exactly went on here. Oh... and mind the ghost types. They live here too." She warns as she continues, making her way down the hall. "About a century ago, this place was constructed by a human, yes, human faction, known as the USCM. You might have heard of them once or twice, I presume?"

Stic very vaguely remembers that name, but just now he is realizing that i belonged to some human group.. "You can say that. It all seems to be made of iron..." 

"Steel, to be precise." Nezami corrects him. "The short story of it is they were the group that was in charge of the human empire before the Protectorate came to power. After they did, they split into several factions, with at least one faction staying loyal to the Protectorate and forming the basis of its military. The group that made this base... is not that group however. They were one of the groups that ran instead, and formed their own little corner of space before further splitting off into warlordism.  We're still not sure what faction exactly this group was. As far as we know, it was completely clandestine. At any rate however, they were sent here to do... something. Observation or experimentation or something. We're still not sure. Hell, from what we've read in their logs, before Johnathan's coup, even they weren't exactly sure what they were doing here, as they had been cut off from whatever command they'd been a part of."
She talks as they travel down the corridor. A little disk-like thing with small eyes looks up at Stic, beeps, and moves on. They come to a similarly crusty steel door. 
"... But I'm getting ahead of myself by mentioning him. First, you must understand what exactly they were doing here before, and to an extent, after then." She opens the door.

Stic listened in silence for all she had to say. These USCM don't exactly sound good, at least the one that lived here. What was it with that disk moving around on the floor though? "Alright then, I'm ready to understand it." He is not sure if he is ready, really.

"I know you're itching to get to the part where this all relates to the Iron King ,but I was given clear orders that you are to be given the full story. So we'll start here. Oh, and mind the repair and cleaning bots. They kind of came with the place."
She opens the door. To the old science room. There are now various avail and more of those wheeled trashcan smiley-face bots moving about doing various things. 
"This was the science room, or its main hall, rather. Where experiments on the locals were carried out. I could list off what kind of experiments they were doing, each less ethical than the last, but there's really only a few of interest to this story. Needless to say those that they nabbed, either from the mainland, the islands, or were just unfortunate enough to get too close here, did not survive the experience."
She moves over to another door, and motions over to him to follow. 
"When said subjects would expire, they'd take them to this room. The 'dissection' room, where they'd cut them up to see what's inside. There's a terminal inside to read. We've left the log files on these terminals intact, for this exact reason." She says. "Do you require instructions on how to use a terminal?"

This gets more and more disturbing to him as it continues. So the humans cut pokémon open to see what was inside? Not unlike those mons that 'work' with hunting 'meat'? When it comes to the terminal though, he could use some know-how in how to use it. "Y...yes please."

"Alright." 
She follows him inside and opens the terminal.
"Right, so you navigate the terminal like this..." She spends a couple of moments giving him the basic gist on how to operate the terminal. Enough that he can figure out how to browse the log files contained therein on his own.
"... As you can see it's fairly simple. I mean, they kind of have to be if their whole purpose is to keep log files and personal notes and such."

"Alright, I think I understand..." When given the go-ahead, the Meowstic approached the terminal and brought his paws over to the controls, very carefully operating it to open up the first log.

Nezami watches as the Guild Master turned nation leader reads the logs.
(Note: if you wish to read the logs for yourself, return to Part 9.)

First Stic seems to be checking out the personal logs, the ones that were salvageable of course. This is helping him understand a little of the people that lived here. Then he starts getting to the most disturbing parts, the dissections in particular. He is trying to be calm but the fact that humans did all this, cutting them up without much hesitation...it's leaving him shaken on the inside.

"You okay?" His guide asks.

"I don't...know." He looks away from the terminal for a moment. He always saw humans as something that got chosen by some sort of higher power, so that was all a lie too? Now he goes back to checking the logs. Stic is reading up what the 'transference project' was about, and what happened to the subjects that were used on it, the information that the humans forcefully stole the bodies of the pokémon for their own end...now he doesn't know what to think of the whole 'human in a mon's body think', because this shattered his expectations and believes in it. Was it really never something good? Humans were always invading and making it look like they were heroes?

"We'll be able to discuss this later. But for now, we must continue this tour." She says. "As you've already read, in this room they did their dissections on the mons that passed away from their experiments, before they started using them for the transference tests. And possibly afterwards. While there is something to be said of doing this for the sake of medical learning, we highly doubt they had such good intentions in mind. Hell, a few of them, Johnathan included, started eating some of the samples. If that's not gross enough, keep in mind these corpses were also treated to a cocktail of chemicals to preserve them longer than was naturally possible. Chemicals that are... not really fit for consumption, to say the least."
She opens the door and motions for him to come out.
"As disturbing as this is, I'm afraid this is only the start. The actual device used is located further from this room. Follow me there now." She instructs.

Stic already doesn't know what to say, and already it looks like worse things are going to be revealed to him. This is making the Meowstic question a lot of things. Since the Avali called him though, he began following her once more.

As he follows her, she leads him to a long hallway, one rusty and dilapidated, like the others. However, near the end of it, she stops, and turns. 
"If you look to your right, these are the cells where the unfortunates who were taken were held before their end." She says to him solemnly. "Before we came here, the skeletons of those poor souls were left there. Though, by that point there was no one really left to clean them up. Only machines that didn't have the programming to do so. And yet said machines guarded this hallway diligently, even though the point of it had long passed. When we came here, we buried the bodies outside. Thanks to the ghosts, some of them were able to be identified. Others, not so much."

"I...see." He looked at the cells for a moment. Stic can only...no, he can't possibly imagine how it must have been for those that were locked behind this and experimented on, all he does know is that it must have not been pleasant. "What are you going to be doing with this place?"

"Well, right now we've turned it into something similar to the 'sandgun' place you're familiar with. An outpost here in the Oracle Sea..."
Nezami goes wide-eyed for a moment.
"Almost forgot! There was a holotape log left on a corpse, that one of one of the USCM guards on the outside of the cells. Seeing as you have no means to access it, unlike with the terminals, I will read this one to you."
She makes a motion with her hand, as if pulling something up out of the air in front of her. Apparently only she can see it however. She clears her throat and reads...
"The plan was a complete success. The idiot 'overseer' and the sightless numbnuts are no more. 
She continues to read the entirety of the log to him aloud.
Though... I just wonder what in god's name are we going to do with the rest of these things? Does he really mean for us all to-" She stops here. "Unfortunately, the rest of the log was corrupted beyond readability. Yes, logfiles can get corrupted. Kinda like what happens if you pour liquid onto a parchment." she explains.

"So humans were never heroes? They were just fiends from another world who mingled among us with a desire to rule us all?"

"This particular group of them. Not all humans are good, despite the so-called 'legends', but I think you knew that already." Nezami corrects him. "If you're talking about the other human 'heroes', we can't really speak for them. And Boris and his crew seem to come from another universe entirely. So I wouldn't discount all of them. Just the ones that came from this particular timeframe."
"Anyway, we've seen enough in this place. Let's move on." She turns and leads him through the door at the end of the cell block.

He simply follows, not sure of what other things are going to be revealed to him.

"And here we are." She says as she leads him into a room with two chairs, and a huge unknown device behind them. "The Transference device. This thing does... or rather, did, take one mind, or 'soul' if you prefer the non-scientific term, and forcibly transfers it into the other, seemingly eradicating the personality and mind of the person that it was transferred into, while leaving the original body was a husk of itself. Permanently braindead." She explains.
"For example, if I were to use the device to transfer myself into you, your mind, memories, etc. would almost all be erased. Bits and pieces of it would remain. Certain bits of knowledge, certain bodily desires like tastes, the urge to mate, etc. But your personality, it would be gone, and mind would be in complete control. My original body would be left in a vegitive state, still technically alive, but unable to move or act upon its own, eventually dying of malnutrition if not preserved through artificial means. I could use the device to transfer back into my original body if it has not already passed on ,but your personality would not return. What I just described my body being in prior would happen to you instead. Got all that?"
She takes a breath from all that explaining.
"Oh, and before you ask. No, it doesn't work anymore. We estimate it ceased functioning around a few decades ago when vital components rusted beyond repair. And, no, there are no plans to fix or make a copy of it. Some technology is better off lost forever."

So humans did not get turned into pokémon, they stole pokémon bodies to use for themselves? That's very worrying. "Then...what happened to these humans? Where are they now?"

"Funny you should ask. That's the next destination on the list. But before that..." She points to another terminal. "Another one to read through."

Another terminal? What does this one hold now? Stic goes to access it to check out it's logs. 

"You may be noticing this 'Johnathan' fellow showing up a lot in these logs." She says. "Pay attention to that name. Although, I suspect that you might have already figured out its significance, if not consciously."

The entries on this terminal, other than pointing out who was fused with who and the results, it also has pretty much what the Avali here already explained to him. "Yes, he is appearing in many of these 'logs'..." Stic is beginning to make some connections here...

"Yes. He does. He was the ringleader of the 'coup' that happened here. When a scientist under him reprogrammed the security bots, and turrets, to fire upon those that were not loyal to him. Those that were, held a certain item. One I'm sure you will find find most familiar..." She holds out the badge found on said USCM soldier in the hallway. It does indeed look very familiar...

Stic does indeed know this badge, it's one that belongs to the nobility. "This...'Jonathan', was he the one? Was he...the Iron King?"

"I somehow knew you'd figure it out before the tour was over." Nezami smiles. "Yes... yes he was. Come..."
She heads out. 
"Our next destination, the penultimate place to see, awaits. We have to go back the way we came, back to the science hall. We can talk more on the way, and I have one more log file to play for you on the way. Though, this one is audio and as you do not have a device to play such holotapes, I'll have to get one of the repairos to do it for us."

The Meowstic follows right behind her. What else can she show him while they are on route to the next place?

"But yes, Johnathan was this 'Iron King.' He's the one that started this whole nobility nonsense, the whole badge system cooked up here in his little conspiracy." She explains as they make their way back down past the now empty cells. "All this stuff about 'noble bloodlines' this, and 'purity that'... It's lies. All of it. Today's so-called 'nobles', at least those that didn't gain their noblity through other means, are believed to be descended from Johnathan's cronies who also took pokemon bodies for themselves. We don't know if CItizen or Guild badges were a thing before this, but after the Iron King's war, the noble badge was the top one..."
She stops mid sentence as she spies one of the large unicycle cylinder drones moving about. This is what she must have meant by 'repairos'. 
"R-Unit 73." She calls out to it in an emotionless tone. "Override command: Follow my target."
The happy-faced robot immediately stops whatever it was doing, and approaches Stic, the meowstic apparently being her 'target'. 
"R-unit 73. Manual command: Play audio file 'Milo." She orders. She begins to walk again, sure that stic is following.
"Let us continue, the drone will play the audio file as we walk."
The drone gives a beep of confirmation, and indeed, audio emanates from its 'mouth', though said mouth does not move. The voice is clearly not its own.
"Doctor Milo here. Day number....i don't know anymore, it's been so long since we have been stuck here. These creatures in this world are quite interesting ~~~
The group continues to walk, with the droid following closely behind and playing the log as they head towards their destination.

~~~I think I'm starting to see why Johnathan is obsessed with these things..."
As soon as the robot is done, Nezami gives it one last command. 
"R-unit 73, cancel, override and resume normal functions."
The R-unit gives a beep, it shakes its perpetually smiling 'head' and turns around, heading back the way they came.
"They came with the place." Nezami answers his unspoken question. "Those and the little disk-like ones. There are other drones outside, ones with actual weapons on them. Rather than let them go to waste or simply scrap them, we simply reprogrammed them. A bit bothersome, as the good doctor had placed several subroutines and viruses into the software to prevent exactly that, but we were able to persevere in the end. There were bigger armed drones inside, but we found them annoying. They kept getting in the way, and kept scaring the ghosts. So we decided to scrap those. Besides, we don't want to leave the same vulnerability as the last group had."

Stic just stared at the robot as it played the audio recording and left. "Why do they sound so interested in what we can do? Humans don't have things such as moves or abilities?"

"They do not." Nezami answers him. "And for that matter, neither do we. This planet's creatures are... an anomaly in that sense. We have encountered certain creatures with certain abilities, but none of them sentient, and none of them to the extent of this planet's."
As she finishes that answer, they arrive at the door.
"We are here." She says opening the door, and motioning him inside. "You wondered what became of those humans that undertook the procedure to put themselves inside of pokemon bodies? Well, this is what became of them." She says. "Or rather, what's left of it."

He heads through the open doorway, now what will he see here? What answers does this room hold?

In this doorway there are glass tubes and a huge machine... or rather, there were glass tubes. Now there are only broken tubes, their liquid drained, and the bodies contained within disposed of.
"This..." Nezami explains, "Was where Johnathan's body, as well as the bodies of those that joined him, were kept. They were kept in these large pods, kept in stasis, should they ever require to return to them for some reason. However, that never came to fruition, as once he and whatever people had been transformed had headed out on that first trip, they were denied access to this place, as was anyone else, forever. The damage you see here..." She extends her arms out, pointing to the pods "Occurred 100 years later, when the Night Witches found this island. As you can imagine, they were... rather angry at them. And, despite it being against the accords, they 'killed' the human body of Johnathan, and his followers. Though, one could argue they were dead anyway, as they had been in a 100 year coma due to their minds being in other bodies that were by this point long dead. Still... a bit of a happy ending, if you'll agree..."

"I don't know I..." Stic sounds like he almost can't contain his confliction. "I never thought humans were actually like this, that everything that is happening right now, even to this day...is actually fully their fault. And they did that with the intent to lord over us..."

"Well, they're not all like this. Just this particular group of them." Nezami reminds him. "Come, let us head towards our last place I need to show you. Once there, we can relax and discuss this further. WIth me, and the rest of my pack." She motions for them to follow. There are no terminals here, or at least, none with any logs.

Stic hesitantly follows her to this last place in the base she wants to show to him. 

Nezami takes him to the control room, a room with lots of terminals. It has changed quite a bit since the night witches came through, the turrets are now replaced. There has been something of an effort to de-rust the place. Also, there are some hammocks, and some storage-hammocks hanging from the ceiling now. There are avali terminals, notable for their much cleaner, much sleeker design as compared to the older USCM ones.
"Welcome to the command room... now our living room." She says as she takes a seat on a hoverchair. She lays back on it, reclining a bit as she places her feet upon one of the terminals. Her feet do not block the screen however, as it's far bigger than it really needs to be. 
There are a few more avalis milling around.
"Before we continue, allow me to introduce you to my pack. This is Nuko."
"Hey." Nuko, the light black and cream colored one with a large feather on his head, raises his claw.
"Rhaun." 
"Yo." He says, likewise raising an arm.
"And Kasala" She points to the black and red/purple one.
"Hey hey!" She squeaks cheerfully.
"And of course there's little old me. Packies," She extends an arm to Stic. "This is Stic. The leader of Sandstone."

Well, no dark secrets being brought into the light so far. Though this does make the Meowstic curious about one thing. "Avalis all live in packs?"

"You didn't know?" Nezami raises an eyebrow. "It's one of our defining features."

"Ah, so even Ranii, the Avali that was sent to join Sandstone, has a pack too?"

"I don't know who Ranii is." Nezami says. "So... I think so?"
"Unless she's a Kayo or something." Nuko chimes in.
"That's kind of rude." Kasala chides him. 
"Well, if this guy hasn't seen her pack, there's at least a chance that this 'Ranii' is a Kayo." Rhaun adds in.

"Is it...bad to not have pack?"

"In a sense. Used to be much worse. If this 'Ranii' is indeed a Kayo, it's best to ask her and not us." Rhaun tells him.
"Anyway, back to business. We may have junked most of the terminals here. Don't worry, they were either non-functional, or had nothing of value on them at all. The only one of interest..." Nezami reaches over with her foot, tapping the top of the screen. "Is this one. Hopefully it'll tie up the whole story together."
"Yeah, it's quite the wild ride, to say the least." Nuko adds in.

One more terminal. He wonders what he is going to find out this time. "May I...?"

"Of course". Nezami moves her feet to allow him better access

This terminal shows Stic about the scientist that betrayed Johnathan, it also confirms the bad intentions of the man who became the Iron King, as he had written about his desire to rule this world with their superior technology.

Nezami remains silent as he reads, watching him go over log after log, waiting for him to finish before talking to him again.

After a bit, he backed away from the terminal... seems like he is finished reading the logs. ".....Is this the last terminal?"

"Yes. That's the last one. And this is the last room. There's no reason to see the barracks or the reactor core or the drone maintenance room, as there's nothing of interest to this story there." Nezami confirms.

"I see..."

"Okay, so I know I've been kind of rushing you through all of this, but now that we're at the end of the road, we can relax, and you can ask any lingering questions you may have. Express any lingering doubts. Pitch theories. Stuff like that." Nezami tells him. 

He sighs. "I don't even know where to begin...can I sit down for a moment?"

"Of course." Nezami points to a chair in front of them. It's not the fancy hoverchair she has, it's one of the old leftover chairs from the base's better days. But it will do the job for now.

The Meowstic goes to take a seat on that chair. He takes in a breath, his eyes seem a bit distant, suffice to say all he saw here today shook him to the core. "How bad do you think things would have been if the Iron King went through with his plan? With all of this?" He gestures to the base around him, he means all this advanced technology that William prevented Jonathan and his followers from acquiring to use in their conquest of the world. 

"Well, if he had gone with his original plan, Iron would have been on the very low end of weaponry used. We'd be seeing guns, and drones. And not like the repairos and cleanerbots you've seen on your tours. No, I'm talking about things with actual weapons that can obliterate you from a distance. Which, I'm sorry to say, is how every mon that tried to reach this island, or were unfortunate enough to end up here by mistake, met their ends after the robots were turned upon Johnathan's loyalists, and the island locked down till we came along. As for what would have happened when the Iron King died... who knows? The world already went into a dark age with everyone forgetting how to make basic iron swords.  Pretty sure the so-called 'nobles' of the area would have kept the codes for the machines. Maybe the 'black island' coup might have played out, but differently with these 'lords' struggling to take control of the robots? Maybe they would have forgotten how to operate them altogether? Who's to say. 
What can be said is that had Johnathan been allowed to go with the plan he wanted rather than the improvisation he was forced to undertake, it's safe to say his rule would have been even more tyrannical."

"I see." He looks down at the ground now. "...This only makes me have more questions about the Iron Prince. But he is even more shrouded in mystery than the Iron King. The only definitive fact we can be sure of is that the prince killed the king."

"Yes, it does make me question whether Johnathan ever told his son the truth about his origins. Or whether by that point the Iron King had essentially lived that lie for so long that he actually believed his own fluffalloshit and the secret died with him. And what of the other men, the other 'nobles' that traveled with him? Presumably the direct descendants of them? Or whether the nobles of now are simply outsiders or the descendants of outsiders that have hijacked the 'deep lineage' myth for themselves, unaware that their lie is based on a further, and much darker lie." Rhaun muses.
"Lie-ception!" Nuko jokes.

"Hhmmm..." Stic is pondering in silence quite a bit right now, but at least he doesn't seem to be having a breakdown, at least not a noticeable one... "I didn't expected all of this to affect me as much as it did. I guess just didn't knew how deep all of this actually was. I hope we really are able to climb out of this deepness..."

"Going back to something you said earlier.." Nezami chimes in. "You began to wonder if all the 'human heroes' were all fakes stealing pokemon bodies like this? Well.... I'm not so sure. This particular group, the Iron King, most definitely. He was a fraud, abusing forbidden technology to make a fake identity for himself, there's no doubt about that. But do remember, he observed that pokemon knew what humans were, if not what they looked like, before this. Him posing as a human in a pokemon body wasn't his original idea, remember. He got it from somewhere else. And there certainly haven't been any humans using that machine since the 2nd coup that cut the island off completely since then."
"And I doubt they had another device laying about somewhere else, or constructed one." Rhaun adds in. "Especially the latter. I mean, no offense, but your kind has enough trouble trying to craft one iron sword, the idea of mons here trying to put together a transference device is downright absurd."
"And it's not like this group built this one." Nezami resumes the conversation. "They got it from somewhere else. Where exactly? We're not sure. But they most certainly didn't make it from scratch here, and on top of that, we believe that among those he took to the mainland on his maiden expedition, none of them consisted of scientists. He left all those behind here to man the base."
"No pun intended." Nuko chimes in. 
"Right." Nezami deadpans at that attempt at humor. "And we all know what happened to the ones left here."

"I see. This was...quite a revelation I experienced here today." He sighs. "I'm not exactly sure what I will do with the knowledge, but we will see."

Nezami reaches over and gives the Meowstic a pat on the shoulder. "It'll be fine." She assures him.

There is not much for him to talk further about the subject of humans, but there is the fact that the Avali have a foothold on the Oracle Sea now too. "The Avali are already planning to focus their attention on the Oracle Sea?"

"Somewhat. Right now we're just holding this base." Nezami answers him. "Not a hard task, we reprogrammed the drones. Though now instead of killing any mons that come snooping, we simply wipe their memories and send them back to Anchor with no recollection seeing anything here. The ghosts actually help us in this task. Though... there was one... other... thing we did as of late."
"Packie..."Rhaun questions, looking a little concerned. "Are you sure you should be discussing that with him? That's supposed to be-"
"I'm sure they plan on telling him sooner or later. Might as well get it over with now. Worst case scenario we get a reprimand."

Stic Raises a brow at that.  Messing with the memories of others is a morally dubious thing, but as a psychic type he can not ignore that it is a very effective tactic when used correctly, so what else could it be that they have done that he would disapprove of? "What other thing?"

"Well, the other group of humans, the ones from another universe, recently discovered a... crashed alien ship in the sea. We were recently sent to retrieve them." Nezami explains.
"Yeah, I remember that mission like it was a few days ago." Nuko chuckles.
"It was a couple of days ago." Rhaun argues flatly.
"Right. Anyway..." Nezami continues. "They were other mons from another planet. In the same star system. We don't know the details fully yet. But... Apparently they were shot down by something. "
"That 'something' being those damn dirty Miniknog bastards."

Well this is surprising news, but not something very alarming, he already is talking with aliens after all but he is curious about these other aliens that came from nearby. The Miniknog though, that's concerning. "...Are the Miniknog getting involved now?"

"We have no direct evidence of that happening yet. And while we hope it stays that way, we really can't be sure it will." Nezami tells him, her voice a bit sullen. "If they do get involved things are going to be messy."

The Meowstic lets out a long sigh. This looks like something way beyond his control, and it pretty much is. He can't do much but hope for the best and pray that the Miniknog aren't around. "I see..."

"Well... I think that's it." Nezami tells him. "If you want to sit back and relax a while... Or head back to Sandstone..."

"I should really get back to Sandstone. You no doubt heard what the Grove did in Bleached Bastion, right? I have been trying to spare some help for it, also been thinking about installing someone to govern it. I have someone I can trust so that some 'line of command' can be established. Mattias said I should do that as soon as possible."

"And he isn't wrong." Nezami says.

He nods. "Well I have nothing else to talk about. Unless there are any more secrets about the Iron King that you want to share, I think I should get going."

"There aren't any." He says. "I think you can-"
Just then, a little ghostly Mismagus floats out of the floor. 

The appearance of the ghost type caught the Meowstic's attention, making him jump a little and blink. This must be one of the ghost types that live here, he remembers one the Avali mentioning this little fact.

Nezami smirks a little as he watches him jump. "Ah..." She turns towards the ghost type. "Miss is in the house."
"Another one to mind-wipe?" She asks.
"Na... not this one." Nezami chuckles. "He's here on a diplomatic mission."
"A.. diplomatic mission?" She repeats.
"Yup. He's the leader of Sandstone." He turns towards Stic. "Stic, meet Miss. She's one of the ghosts that was trapped here prior to us coming here. Miss, Stic."

"Greetings, Miss." He cordially greets the ghost. Stic kinda thinks one might mistake the name 'Miss' for what one would refer a female to, like 'misses', but he understands that it's her name. "It is good to meet you."

"Likewise!" She cheerfully replies as she floats over, a 'hand' extended.

He reaches a paw over to shake that 'hand' of hers. "So you lived here around the time when the place was populated by humans?" He is not sure if it's okay to ask that, but if she doesn't want to talk about it he will understand.

She shakes his hand with 'hers', the 'cloth' is cold to the touch. 
"Yes, yes I was." She says. "But I spent most of it hiding.... we all did."

"So you are in charge of mind-wiping pokémon that venture to this place?"

"I do some of them, yes." She says. "It's not something I particularly enjoy, but it's far better than the alternative."
"As much as we'd like to open this place up, or simply leave it to the ghosts, I'm afraid we really can't at this point in time." Nezami adds in. "There's simply too much at stake here. Too much technology that needs to be kept out of the wrong hands. Too much history that needs to be kept out of the wrong hands. You can understand, right?"
"Well..." 'Miss' replies. "I wouldn't want the coldbirds to leave anyway." She rubs up against Nuko, making some cute noises as she does, who in turn rubs her head with his talons.

He can see that once again the Avali have made friends here pretty quickly. "Yes I understand, it is quite a powerful tool, the mind that is."

"Before we came and shut off the robots, the poor ghosts like Miss here had to hide themselves in the rocks. The drones, from what I've been told, were as deadly to them as they were to everything else. Lasers and bullets still affected them, just like living creatures." Rhaun explains.
"It's true." Miss tells Stic. "During the first years, a few ghosts tried to escape the island, only to get destroyed by the metal monsters.  We couldn't operate the glow- er, terminals. None of us knew how. We couldn't leave the island, as the ones outside would hunt us down and kill us. We thought it was going to be like this forever... then the cold birds came and started destroying the machines, and shut down the rest. Now, we can actually move about. Leave and join a ghost ship if we want to, and actually live. Well, live again. Well, you know what I mean."

There is one thing that Stic has been wondering ever since Miss began saying that word. "Cold birds?" He can guess she probably means the Avali but they never looked like anything that could fit the word 'cold'.

"They mean us." Rhaun replies. "We come from an ice world. And we like cold places. So.... cold birds."
"Even though we're technically feathered raptors and not birds." Nuko adds on.

"Oh." He didn't figured Avali came from cold places, given that he knows that birds in this world universally hate cold weather and are weak to Ice-types. "I should really get going now, my comrades back home might be getting worried about me taking so long away from Sandstone."

"Of course." Nezami gets up. "I'll take you back to the teleporter. Follow me."
"Bye Stic!" the others cheerfully yell as they wave.

Stic waves a paw back to them as he follows Nezami back to the teleporter so he can go back home.

Nezami does exactly that, and soon he is back at the teleporter. "Well, I hope that was informative. I'm not sure if revealing that information was really going to have any effect on anything. But... Ah well. See you around, Stic!" She says.

"Farewell." This certainly gave him a lot to think about, to say the least. But he will keep being strong, in the end of the day this doesn't change a whole lot, he is still going to get the Sands liberated from the nobles and the invasion of the Grove. Now he gets in the teleporter and gets sent back to the mansion in Sandstone.

Stic arrives safely back in Sandstone, wiser, and perhaps, horrified at the revelations that he has just seen. It's now up to him to determine what to do with that information...