Act 71: Questions

After the dropship landed in the base it was time to get out of the cramped space. Hopefully there are enough cells for all of these prisoners. Certainly some of these can be transferred to the dungeon in Sandstone if need be.
Now it is time for the team to take part in the debriefing in the commander's tent. Mattias is there too and he looks like has some bad news to share but is waiting for the current debriefing to take place first before whatever he needs to say.

The dropship, being much faster than the drone, arrived first, so they're still awaiting the drone. However, it should return in a matter of moments. 
Neso meanwhile is giving the last of the details of the mission.
"Must say..." The commander comments. "You've recovered a lot more prisoners than we anticipated."
"Well, we tried, sir." Neso replies. "You said you wanted captives so we took every precaution to capture as many as possible."
"Indeed," The commander nods. "Well done."

"Well, they took no real damage, I suspect in about a couple hours or so." The commander replies. "Why do you ask?"

"Just asking so i know how long we have to decide on our next move..." He said. "Something has happened in Sandstone but unfortunately I don't think we can do much to help without exposing our existence to the common citizens. Bombs were stolen from the NSR's armory."

"How in the world did that happen?!" The commander groans.

"Better security measures are being thought about as we speak." Mattias began. "But I suspect that it must have been a pokémon capable of mimicking the likeness of others, I find it hard to believe it was a ditto, those are very rare and I don't think the bandits would have the time and patience to raise or train one. I'm afraid we must be dealing with an illusionist. A Zoroark." He bites his lips for a moment. "This is no doubt the bandits, we know that they are organized. And I think I can predict their little strategy..."

"Yes, zoruas are... surprisingly not uncommon around here." Veers chips in.
"I'm kinda surprised we didn't have this problem before." Neso quips. 
"It's starting to sound like that one human game... what was it called? 'Amazus?' 'Animagus?' 'Suspicious Guys?' Something like that?" Rali adds in.

"There might be some around, yes. But Zoruas are not as capable as Zoroarks. What's more this mon in question knows his stuff, looking like someone from the NSR would be a start. But NSR had some things in place to counter something like this but they weren't enough, some new measures are going to be put in place." Mattias keeps explaining. "I believe the bandits are going to use these explosives for an public terrorist act. They want the citizens to be outraged, they want the NSR to be outraged so they can come after them in force...and right into a hail of gunfire from pokémon armed with firearms. But this hasn't happened yet. I know there is a Lucario in Sandstone, he is by nature the most well equipped to see through illusions."

"And most of all, whoever is behind them wants to draw the the NSR's benefactors, us, into a proxy war." The commander concludes. 
"Wait..." Neso suddenly asks, "what about Veers here? Isn't he a 'psychic' type or something now? Couldn't he sniff them out?" 
Veers shakes his head at this question. 
"I'm afraid not." He replies sadly. "Zoroarks are dark types. Dark types are completely immune to psychic attacks, including mind-reading. We could sniff out a ditto, but not a Zoroark. Besides, even if that wasn't the case, I'm still getting used to my powers, so I'm afraid I couldn't be as useful on that front."

"Unfortunately..." Mattias sighs. "In the meant time you should rest until your next mission. Hopefully all those bandits you captured will gives us more than enough information we need, specially about the leadership of these bandits. But overall me and the commander here will plan the next step."

"Yeah..." Neso replies. "I wonder how the interrogation is going?"

As it turns out, Duci is the one that was selected to interrogate the bandits. They got one of them in a locked room waiting.
Right now the Decidueye is making her way there, and she had asked Easani to walk with her so she could talk with him before the interrogation started, she needs get some things clarified... "So...the rules that are in place say that it is forbidden to get information out of a prisoner with a more...'physical approach', is that right?" She is no stranger to beating information out of someone, when she part of the Grove it was one of things she did. But just convincing someone to spill the beans through the use of words? Sounds like it could be a challenge.

"Technically, yeah. That applies to prisoners of war." Easani explains. "But theeen again, these aren't really soldiers or civilians from an enemy faction, they're rank bandits. Still, best be on the safe side of things?"

'Technically' huh? She will keep that in mind. "Alright, good to know." She nods to him.
They are now approaching the point where Duci will have to continue on her own, the door to the interrogation room. It is being guarded by a couple of Sandshrew.
The owl takes at deep breath. "This is it. Let me see how this is going to go..." She said to the Leafeon before stepping forward to talk with the pokémon guarding the door. "I'm here to speak to the our prisoner. Let me in, please."
One of the two ground types nods to her before unlocking the door and opening it to allow her entry.
The Decidueye then began walking forward again, stepping through into the room as the door closed behind her. Now that she is here, she looks at the pokémon who is she going to be asking the questions to...

... A marroward, who is looking at her with a look defiance and irritation.
"You aren't gettin' anything, bitch." He says immediately. "So ya might as well just turn back and head back out that door."

So it is a Marrowak then. "I'm afraid i can not do that." Duci shook her head. "Lets you and i be reasonable, yes? What i want to know is where all those guns came from. The ones that you were using. You tell me what i want to hear and perhaps things get more favorable for you and your friends." First she is going to start of being 'good'.

"Don't ya know? I got them at the store! On sale today, half off, come on down!" He laughs sarcastically. "Like I said, you aren't getting anything."

A predictable response, but she won't get him get under her skin. "I want to help you. But for me to do that i need you cooperate with me, sir. Just give me the information i need and i promise that you and your friends might get a slightly less severe punishment. How does that sound?"

"Pppht, I'm not afraid of you. Believe me, bitch, you're nothing." He retorts.

"I see." She sighs. Well, it's time to be 'bad' then. With a strong flap of her wings Duci was in the air, and then she descends upon him with her taloned feet grasping him by the shoulders as she forced him to the ground with her weight. She is on top of him like bird of prey upon it's quarry. "In that case i guess i will have to start beating it out of you huh?" The owl remains eerily calm as she talks down to the Marowak.

"Ha. You can't do that." The Marrowak speaks. "You guys are all bitches that have rules against this sort of thi-"
"Erm..." The loudspeaker in the room suddenly announces. "We're having a bit of trouble with the cameras in the room right now. Sudden freak accident. We're working to get them back online, but it might be a while." 
How... very convenient.

How very convenient indeed. "You were saying?" The Decidueye then flaps her wings again to take to the air while still holding on to the bandit. Even though the room isn't all that big she was still able to perform a front flip before throwing him against the wall. With some grace she plants her feet on the ground as she lands and approaches the other pokémon. "Better say something i want to hear before you get hurt..."

"I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to!" He protests. "Look, I don't know who you guys really are, but from what I heard, you guys don't do the whole 'torture' thing. Kill outright? Maybe. But the guys we got them from? Oooh boy. I only heard minor things, but I heard some seriously fucked up shit. Shit that make even the worst nobles seem like those bleeding heart Ashshell guilders."

"Hhhmmm." It's not much, but it seems like she got him talking. She just leaned him a bit closer to him now as she stares him down. "What do you mean? What kind of things do 'they' do?" She figures that this the topic that the Marowak would be willing to dive in a little deeper, and if he doesn't want to straight up tell who gave them those guns, she figured she could get more details that the Avali could use to piece together who it might be.

"I don't know specifics, but I heard they take 'slaves', and they do some really messed up things. Where or what, I don't know, and don't care to."

Whoever these are they sure sound mysterious, and evil. Hopefully she is not too far from getting any meaningful intel. "Have you seem what they looked like at least? What kind of pokémon are they?"

"I don't know. I just know that they were big. And really hairy."

"Hhhhmmm...alright then." It looks like this is as far as she can ask about this topic. "Next i want you to tell me about your leader. Who has been organizing you all?"

"I don't know his name. It's a Lucario, I know that much." The bandit replies.

"Hhhmmmm..." That doesn't narrow it much, Duci finds this frustrating but if there is really no way around it... "You are not holding back anything i would want to know, are you?" This might be the last thing she will be asking the Marowak.

"..." The Marowak doesn't say anything in reply to that.

After more tense staring she backs away from him. "You best behave during your stay here..." She then turns around and walks towards the door to leave the room. Looks like the interrogation is pretty much over.

The large Marowak narrows his eyes as he watches her leave the room. "Bitch." He mutters under his breath.

She rolls her eyes and just keeps walking. When the Decidueye stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her, she decided to stop with the posture and just relaxes herself and lets out a sigh. "That's that, not sure it's very concrete information but we are not short in mons to interrogate. If he tried to hit on me, I was going to hit him way harder..."

"Hey, babe." A familiar voice calls out. "You alright?" right as a familiar green hand is placed on her shoulder.

She turns to Easani and smiles a little. "Yeah I'm fine. I think I did well enough. Though I suspect I might have to interrogate another one of them soon." She sighs. "But it's a start." 

Easani nods. "Sounds like it went better than expected. Though then again, you can give bandits a bunch of fancy weapons, but at the end of the day, they're still cowardly bandits."

"Yeah." She nods. "Hope the Avali figures are those 'big and really hairy' people responsible for this mess."

"I think I remember the Avali mentioning people like that once." Easani recollects. "Only heard it in passing though."

Back in the command tent, it was about time to start the briefing of another mission. So Mattias and the other three humans have started to gather there. They are just waiting for the Avali Pack to come too.

A few minutes pass, and soon, Neso comes through the tent flap. "Sorry for the wait." Neso apologizes, his pack coming in behind him and gathering at the table.

"Alright now that we are all here. Let's go over what we can do." He motions to the digital map on the table that seems to be displaying the entirety of the Sands, it zooms in on a portion of it, the one where the bandits are overall been operating. "Striking at their raiding parties are all well and good, but they obviously have leaders and they have a plan going on. We should try to cut off their heads when we can. That Tyranitar that destroyed that village left us a trail that led us to her lair as I have said. Turns out it is still mostly under construction, it's a base on the lower parts of a cliff. I suspect they plan to turn it into a cave that goes into the lower cliffside. All that's done of it so far is an enclosure and some of the initial tunnel digging they have been doing." Now the map zooms in to the south.

"Raining down ordinance from the drop ship might sound like a good idea but we do know that they keep hostages in those tents. This is probably something we want to avoid, getting hostages hurt..." He then raises his gaze to look up at the Pack. "Now, there are more than just the 'obvious' way to approach this. You can just go for a full frontal assault against the gate, or you could rappel down the cliff and get to ground level right within their walls...or pick the silent approach. Do you have any thoughts on this, Neso? How would you approach this?"

"Hmmm if there's hostages, they might go for them the moment they know we're there. Unless they're keeping them for something else. But then again if they feel they're on the verge of losing them anyway, they might just figure that it would be a better idea to take them down with them." Neso replies. "Yes. Rapelling might be the better way." Rali adds in, earning a nod from Seph.

Mattias nods as well. "Seems like you got an entry plan going. You would have to be deployed a bit far from their base so they don't see you coming, but after a little walk you will be right on top all of their lookouts, so they shouldn't see you coming until it is too late." The human then brings up another sort of information on the screen. It's some images of Tyranitar. "Now let me remind you of what you are dealing with here. Tyranitars are considered walking disasters because when they start rampaging, things really can get dangerous. And given that this one has been given power that it should not have, you are going to have to be wary of dealing with something that can easily make that cliff collapse, throwing its power around. Be prepared to run if it looks like the ceiling is about to start coming down."

Neso nods in response, as does the rest of its pack. "Should we have the gunship on standby?"

"It would be prudent. If you can confirm that there won't be civilians in the line of fire, then there will be little stopping the gunship from using its weapons to provide support. And from the three of the operatives I brought with me, I have calculated that the best one to go with you for this one is Issac." Yes, he means that very same witty guy with a robotic voice. "...He is going to bring some special equipment with himself, mainly some beacons that can be used to designate targets for long range support, among other things."

"Oh, great. Finally I'm gonna do more than just sit here." Issac commented. "Let's use guns to destroy the guns and whatever else was handed over to those pokémon."

"Sounds like a plan" Rani replies back.

"Oh and before you get going, one more thing." Mattias then shows them something else on the tables' screen, it's the image of a spherical drone, the same one that got shot down in the team's previous mission. "These drones belong to someone that is not an enemy you know, but it is an enemy that I know. Last time they were watching you. If you happen to spot any of these I ask that you destroy them with extreme prejudice."

Issac narrows his eyes. "The Novel? Really?"

"Novel?" Neso asks. "Wha?"
"Tell us more about this 'enemy'" The commander says. "It would be good for us to know why exactly we're destroying them, after all."

Mattias has rarely ever looked so serious. "Yes, that's what they call The Novel. They are humans who have forsaken their humanity and dabble on forbidden sciences. They practice things such as 'immortality' through cloning, gene splicing, unsanctioned fossil revival and many other crimes against nature. Whatever they set their eyes on runs the risk of becoming warped, torn apart and put together for the sake of their curiosity. Amongst their ranks are wicked men and mons with no morality."

"So basically, discount Miniknog." Neso quips. "Got it."

This is somewhat concerning for Mattias, these Miniknog. The 'Novel' are the worst that he knows of, are the Miniknog equal to them? Or worse? There is also the fact that he is scared of what would happen if the two of them meet. "Alright, good. Your objective for this one should be the liberation of hostages and the elimination of that Tyranitar. It is probable that she will be too dangerous to capture alive, so keep that in mind. Now if there are no more questions and such, you are all free to commence this mission."

"Nope, we got it." Neso turns to his squadmates. 
"Seph, you think we should bring along the heavy artillery?" Neso asks.
"You mean the Minigun or the Anti-Mat railgun?" Seph asks.

One of the other humans, the one that will be tagging along this time, Issac, approaches to join in on this conversation. "I assume that this is about the Tyranitar? Sounds like any of those two could do the trick if you don't waste the ammunition on the small fry."

"Well... don't want the thing to suffer much, so..." Seph thinks a little bit. "I think I'll go with the railgun."
"Big gun for Big Daddy!" Rali chuckles.
"It's a shame we don't have one of those Shellguard C.R.A.B.s on hand..." Neso says under his breath. 
"That would probably be a bit overkill." The commander pipes in, having heard him with those ears of theirs. "Besides, it's not like we could even get one. Ironwatch jealously guards that tech, and charges an exorbitant amount of money to hire a pilot with one." 

Jormar has going to leave but when they started talking about guns he stood where he was to listen in. "Shellguard-what now?" Issac got curious enough to ask when the commander said it would be 'overkill', how bad can it possibly be?

"Shellguard. A mercenary company slash tech development house slash small time empire." The commander explains. "Been around for a couple of earth centuries. One of the few human powers still remaining. Ironwatch is an elite sect within Shellguard. To be honest, we don't have a whole lot of history with the group on the whole." 
"The 'C.R.A.B.' thing.." The commander clicks a button, and a hologram appears.

"Is basically a giant walking tank. About 3-5 standard stories tall depending on the leg loadout. Gained the public eye during the fifth Avikan-Thell war where the Shellguard got hired by the former to help retake worlds from the thell, and the Ironguard sent several of these beasts.  By all accounts they should be really impractical to create let alone operate, yet somehow the Ironwatch makes them work. We're still not sure whether it's because the tank is that good or whether they just have really good pilots for them." 
"Of course, I know what you're probably wondering: 'have the Avail ever tried to come up with one?' Well the short answer is: ... no. 
The longer answer is that several other races, including the miniknog, tried to come up with their own versions, but they just ended up being bad knockoffs and were easy targets in any real engagements. Like I said, I'm not sure if the Ironwatch has some hidden tech they use to make these things viable or whether the pilots are just that good with them. But the Avali R&D took one look at these attempts... and given our own tactics that run in direct contradiction with these things... decided it just wasn't worth trying to make one."

Mattias, Issac and Jormar are looking at the hologram, taking in the details of this giant mech.
"Well it does look impressive...would be too much though." That's what Mattias has to say on it.
"Could it be better to just give it two legs, maybe?" Issac had something a bit less helpful to say on the matter.
Vehicles ultimately are not what Jormar is really interested in, but it does look like it can use a lot of gun.

"Two legged mechs that are of smaller scale are the standard, yes, for most powers. For example..." He clicks a button, and the hologram of the huge crab tank is replaced with something else: A much smaller looking two legged walker with rounded, curvy, egg-like armor and cockpit. It's sporting two large, very heavy looking machine guns on either arms.

"This MM-4 Wasp variant used by the Avail. About only 1 story tall."
"Barely bigger than Seph here." Neso adds in. "Right." The commander nods. "The weapons may differ, obviously. They're often used when tanks are simply not practical, such as for quicker hit and run attacks, or in space."

"I'm surprised that this isn't infantry standard." Issac commented.
"I suppose we should be glad the Tyranitar wasn't given something like that." Mattias says. "I mean, one of those machine guns the mech seems to be holding."

"Well, it kind of is. At least for heavy infantry." The commander corrects. "Only reason we don't have them here is because we didn't think we'd need them."

"Well maybe we won't need them unless proven otherwise." Mattias shrugs. "What we have seems to be working pretty well so far given how the last mission went, don't you think?"

"Quite so." The commander agrees.

"Yeah." Mattias gives a nod. "You guys should probably get to the ship now. Issac, i know this is something that has not happened yet but try not to accidentally request the wrong type of support on top of hostages, if there are any." The other human rolls his eyes. "Yes. I know. I know."

"Yes, that will be all, Neso. Dismisssed." 
"Pos that." Neso nods. He turns to leave, along with the rest of his pack. 
"And... good luck." The commander adds, just as they leave the tent.