Board 8 > Tsunami does blind playthroughs of VNs--Grand Revival [spoilers] [ztd] [aa6]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Poring over everything I've written, looking for some sort of hint that I missed. Nothing, but I do notice something peculiar. I immediately recognized 729 as an interesting number, but it didn't occur to me that it is 9 times 9 times 9. Which it is. I go back to "Reality", since that takes place in the same room as Q-Team's Force Quit, desperately looking for a spare hint. Hmm...could that dash actually be a minus sign? But there's nowhere we need a four-digit number. The Force Quite Box doesn't even have a "check" button, so there's no way that it's just obscuring a passcode that's fewer than 8 digits. Come on, what am I missing?!

...Are you kidding me. I used a walkthrough that spoiler tags things out. And the answer is to let the 20 seconds run out. That's what I failed to do when Eric was pointing a shotgun at Q. Should've figured as much since it had a timer, but I'm stupid that way. Eric refrains from pulling the trigger, but it's nothing much new afterwards at first. Come on, tell me something beyond Eric and Mira's dating history. Ah...Mira reminds Eric of his mother. He says he doesn't remember much of his mother, but she was a good cook, and liked things clean, and her gentleness and warmth were so memorable... He realizes that she and Mira aren't much alike at all. But Eric was going to propose...DAMNIT! I really thought for a moment that Eric was about to give us the second half of what we needed for D-Team's Force Quit Box. Ah, here's where Gab comes through with the message from Carlos. "Search the family portrait." Oh, yeah, that was in the Pod Room. Eric wonders if it's a trap. He doesn't want Q to do it...ah! That's another Door of Fate! Near the bottom, it says "Twins' Birthday". But there's no input screen or confirmation device...ah! Is it the same one?! Q checks Mira's body, but Eric says he should be the one to do it. There's something on her nails. Skin and blood. She struggled with her killer. So the killer should have scratches from Mira on their body. But Q thinks it's strange, because he assumed she'd been killed in her sleep, after being injected. Then they're put to sleep and given the forgetfulness drug. Twins' Birthday...Phi is the one who had "TWIN" as an X-Pass. We know she was born in 2008, but what's the exact day? I feel like, if I knew, I could get through the Door of Fate. Well, at any rate, this was minor progress.

Ah, but now the question mark for The Stranded Pair became an exclamation point! We have our next destination. But I have work tomorrow, so it'll have to wait.
---

02:33. The game is over, so there's no more reason to make them sleep. Diana wonders if Akane will come back. She asks Sigma if they want to try turning on the transporter again, but Sigma's certain it won't work. It'll take 10 months to recharge. There's plenty of food available. If they eat frugally, it'll last them 9-10 months--and yes, Sigma confirms, he took Gab's needs into account when calculating that. They head to the Manufacturing Room...there's no balls in the bomb now! It's empty. It's been disarmed. Cut to Sigma telling Diana to eat, and she says she's not hungry. Cut to the incinerator room. Diana's been coming there a lot, trying to remember. Remember Phi. She still has Phi's brooch...That's the word! So it's the six, not the nine. Yes, they've called it that before. Brooch. Cut to Diana banging on the X-door, calling out to Zero to let them out. Over to the locker room, shower running. And relaxing in the healing room. It's been two weeks. Sigma's been marking the wall. Diana says it's so peaceful. There's no war here, no murder, no innocent children being abducted. Sigma says it's still going on in the outside world, but Diana says that's why it's peaceful. They don't have to know about it. Ha, Diana's fallen victim to "social media depression". Ah, and now she's got out a music box with Maeterlinck's "The Blue Bird". Diana feels like this is similar. "Happiness is closer than you think". Sigma believes Diana's interpretation was wrong, because the bird flies away. "Happiness will slip through your fingers the moment you believe you have it." It implies that the process of dreaming is true happiness. Diana says Sigma just ruined her dream then. Sigma apologizes, and Diana asks if he'll disappear, too. Cut again to Sigma trying to get her to eat...it's basically glorified dog food. It's been a month now. Sigma wonders if Akane's forgotten; that the bracelet was still on, and she's been made to forget. Diana believes that Akane did this intentionally. Murdered Carlos and Junpei; manipulated Carlos into voting for Q-Team... Diana's going crazy because of the sameness of it all. Day after day. She says it's all Rebecca's fault. We heard that name before. The head nurse who suggested Diana join the experiment. Sigma says Diana had another reason, though. She's single now, but she's been married before. An abusive spouse, alcoholic. He screwed up at work and garnered a large debt. He'd seemed serious and kind while they dated, but no more. He drank to his eyeballs and laughed as he beat her. So she left him, but he persisted in following her around, asking her for money and sex, and beat her if she didn't comply. One time he came by her work and made a scene, flipping the table in the cafeteria. And every time, he'd end with "I love you. I love you so much, Diana", and he'd weep. And she always caved. So she secluded herself to escape him. That's why Rebecca brought it up. Diana wonders why Sigma knew that. He asks if she'd believe him if he said he heard it from her. Another cut. She's been drinking heavily. Sigma tries to cut her off. It's been 1.5 months now. Diana wonders how Sigma can be so calm. He says he has experience with this sort of thing. He breaks the bottle. She tries to drink the spilled alcohol right off the floor, then tries to play it off like it was a joke. She's clearly drunk. Then she asks Sigma to sleep with her. I can't tell at first which meaning she means, but it becomes clear that she does mean it sexually. She calls him a coward, says he doesn't have the balls. Then she says if he won't do that, he should just kill her. She'd rather die now than wait to waste away. She heads back to the transporter and breaks down crying again. Sigma apologizes for everything. He could see how she was feeling, but he couldn't offer help. He didn't want to get too close to her, afraid something would shatter. She said the shelter was peaceful, that happiness could be found there, but in reality, he was the one who believed that.
---

It's just like she said. He's not brave. He's a coward and a wimp. He's afraid of change, and didn't want to lose her. Like that time... Like that blue bird. Diana apologizes. They're getting into the pods again? Oh, right, they "look like beds". Diana says she has a dream, and Sigma knows that she wants to go to the moon. She's been obsessed with it since she was a kid. Even her name, Diana, comes from the goddess of the moon. (Well, close enough.) Diana asks how he knows so much about her. Sigma says that he's lived with her for three years. In the future, his past. He uses his legs as a multiverse. Right now, they're on the right knee, but he was talking about the left leg path. She asks if he's really from the future. She does believe him; it makes the dream better.

Three months later. Diana says she needs to tell Sigma something. She may be... her hands are over her stomach.

11/16/2029. Roughly nine months after Diana's drunken outburst. A crying baby. A healthy boy. And Diana says she still feels something. She thinks there's another. There's two. Fraternal twins. Sigma asks if she realized. She says she had a hunch, but couldn't be sure. Sigma's glad she managed to give birth safely, even in a place like this. Diana thanks him. He gave up his own food once he knew she was pregnant. He says he never believed in unconditional love, that in the back of his mind, he always believed he was expecting recompense whenever he helped someone. But now, he believes he'd give his life for them. That they survive...that's all he asks. Then he turns to Gab. That biscuit he just gave Gab was the last one. There's none left. He thanks Gab for everything, listening to him while he was in pain. He says there's something he wants to show Diana. The transporter's turned on. But there are only two input pods...he wants to transport them. He reminds Diana that their original bodies will stay here. But they're out of food. If they do nothing, they'll all just starve and die. It takes ten months to charge, so this is the last chance to use it. Diana asks when they should send them to. Sigma says not the future; it's too dangerous. And not the near past, either. Sometime before Zero obtains this device. Sometime before the year 2009. Holy shit, man. I was right about needing to know Phi's birthday! The clues were all there. I even noted that her big reveal about being a redhead was kind of obvious seeing her in scenes with Diana, because even though Phi dyes her hair, their eyebrows are the same color. But wow, that's sneaky. Sigma asks if Diana thought of a name, and Diana asks the same of Sigma. They promised, she'd name it if it was a boy, and he would if it's a girl. Diana comes up with the name "Delta", after her first initial and his Greek letter theme naming. Sigma says he was thinking of a Greek letter, too. The one that means the most to him. Phi. He wants to name her after the Phi they knew. And then Diana says that it's not right if someone changes their names now that they've given them to them. And she sends Phi's brooch back in time with baby Phi. And with Delta, the Blue Bird music box. Answers, we have them! "The Twins' Birthday" and "Mother's Mementos".

Hot damn. You know, I vaguely remember a throwaway line in VLR about Phi telling old man Sigma that he's not her father. I did think it odd that both those characters were named after Greek letters, but... This is truly crazy. I shouldn't be surprised in a series that has so many time travel shenanigans, but I am. What a trip.
---

Door of Fate first, of course; those Force Quit Boxes are likely our endgame so I want to save them whenever possible. Er, Door of Truth. I've been calling it the wrong thing. The door opens. They enter the Pod Room and open a pod, finding Eric's dead body...no, his live body. His head hurts. Diana asks how he got there, and he says he was going to ask the same thing--how did they get into Ward Q? Diana thinks that's not right. Sigma opens another, and finds Q, but...they don't remember him being there? And Eric seems to think that they wouldn't have met Q yet, either. Q doesn't recognize them. Eric introduces them to him as Diana and Sigma from D-Team. He recognizes the names and wonders how they got here. Sigma says he'll explain later and he wants to check the other pods. Q asks Eric what's going on, and he doesn't know. Next pod, body under a sheet. Mira's, still dead from strangulation. Okay, they got the forgetfulness drugs. More pods. The next one has a body and blood spatter. Akane's. Eric's still trying to revive Mira. Next pod has a bloody sheet as well. Diana faints...ah, it's Junpei. Still with his head severed, as it was when he wound up in the freezer. While she was out, they investigated the other pods. One was empty, but the other three...Sigma says Diana shouldn't look. She says she's calmed down, but Sigma says it's not about that. The truth is beyond comprehension. And then Eric says he's going to show her. Sigma tries to stop him. Sure enough, it's the headless bodies of D-Team. Diana knew it, though. That they'd transported into a timeline where they'd died. Diana tells Eric about the transporter. She reminds Sigma of the blood in the Healing Room, that these are their bodies from this history. Sigma realizes that they were executed by the 13:30 vote. Diana agrees. Sigma says it was all for nothing. They transported to find a history where Phi existed. Eric's back to his usual agitated demeanor. The static of the television...Akane and Carlos's duel, axe against chainsaw. Diana asks where Carlos is. The PA announces the current casualties. Akane, Junpei, Mira, Diana, Phi, Sigma. JUNE, JUMP, VIRGIN, BLUE, RED, MILK. Like I said, there's one in there that we'd never be able to input in timelines where we actually have to do so. Q, Sigma, and Diana head to the X-Door, expecting Carlos to beat them, but Eric's still in shock. They go to Ward D's Lounge, and find...Carlos. He reacts poorly to Q's presence, unsurprisingly. Sigma demands he drop the axe, and he says there's been a misunderstanding. He tosses the axe away. The one in Ward D is fried, too?! Bullet holes, same as Ward Q's. Eric, again. He vaguely remembers what happened before being put to sleep, so he knew about the shotgun. He says he has to shoot the one who did it. If whoever does it confesses, he'll spare the others, otherwise he'll shoot them all. He doesn't even believe that Diana and Sigma are the real Diana and Sigma, finding their explanation ridiculous. Carlos tries to get his attention. Eric turns on him, saying he admits it, and saying that they all saw the footage where he killed Akane. Carlos says it's true, he may have killed her. Eric's angry at him for saying "may", and Carlos said even if he did, it's not what he did right now. Eric asks what he's talking about, and Carlos admits that he doubts Eric would believe him if he explained it. Eric says to go ahead and try. Carlos says he shifted from another timeline. Sigma recognizes the word. Diana misunderstands and thinks he transported, too. Eric is sure that Carlos killed Junpei and Mira too. He denies involvement with both and points out that he was limited to the space in Ward C, and Mira was on Q-Team. Q points out they're in Ward D right now. Eric thinks there's a secret door, and Diana's not so sure. She asks Eric to shoot the wall with the shotgun. It shorts out. The entire room was projected. It's just a projection. There was only ever one ward. If you rotate the angles of the three wards...they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
---

The decontamination room, the prep room, and the lounge were all, in fact, the same place. Shared by "all three" wards. Which by extension means that the "First Come, First Saved" segments couldn't have possibly been simultaneous at all. The Flowchart has them stacked, but I figured it wasn't...

...wait. The 13:30 votes truly are placed simultaneously on the chart. So that should've been a clue! But, wait, the 13:30 votes were all done from the lounges, so they couldn't have actually been done simultaneously either, if those were all the same lounge! Q wonders why they never bumped into each other, if at no other time than 13:30. They should've all been there then. Diana says it's because of the bracelets. She asks where Carlos's is. It fell off when his hand was cut off, but I get what she's saying. I considered the possibility that, just like in VLR when they were moving slower to disguise the effects of Radical-6, these bracelets were lying about the time...but I never would have guessed that the three teams' bracelets were not in sync with each other! Carlos has his, anyway. Diana asks him to check the time. His says 23:23. Q's says 21:23, as does Eric's. And Sigma's and Diana's say 19:23. Eric asks which one's the right time. Q says it's not important. That explains why the wake-up times were always either just past 18:00 or just past midnight! Each team had their own separate block of two hours, alternating. Thus, if C-Team's time is accurate, for example, it means Q-Team actually voted at 15:30 and D-Team at 17:30. Heh, nice touch; Gab's note does show the chronology. That's also the order the FCFS segments are stacked--C, then Q, then D. While one team was awake, the other two were sleeping inside the pods. Looking at the times, Diana realizes that she and Sigma will be put to sleep soon. Okay, I get it...well, this is D-Team's time, after all, and Q-Team was in the pods. Carlos is awake because his bracelet hand got chopped off. And Q says that if that's true, they'll forget everything that just happened. Diana takes them to the Transporter Room. By that schedule, Q-Team should already be asleep. Ah, they used the cards to stop the injection. They weren't manmade, so they're too strong for it. Is Eric's only purpose in this story to be the skeptic to all the weird shit that goes on? Brand new fragment for C-Team. "Get Back". It follows the segment we were just in. Eric recaps what we just learned--they were separated in time, not space. But that just makes him more suspicious of them, as it invalidates their alibis. Q agrees that it's one of them who killed Mira and Junpei. Eric suspects the D-Team duo, since they aren't even bound by the rules, being fakes. Eric tells them to turn it on, then. Sigma says they can't, and explains the ten-month recharge time. But Carlos recognizes that in this timeline, it hasn't been used. Eric's back to pointing the gun at Carlos, and references Akane's death. Carlos reiterates that that was the him that was originally in this history. He works out what happened, with them finding Junpei, Akane suspecting Carlos, and Carlos killing her in self-defense. Q pleads with Eric to put the gun down, and Carlos thinks to himself that Q's different to in the other history, and he thinks that that Q was a bit "off". Is he a different person? Eric wants to see the SHIFT. Carlos says he will, but first, he wants to see how the transporter works. She says it won't work for ten months, and Carlos says he knows; he just wants to know if they were to use it. He apologizes to Eric for making him wait. He says he has to save Akane and Junpei. Eric protests that they're already dead, and Carlos says that they are in this history, but not the other one. Eric says that he said the next time Carlos talked crap, he'd shoot him, and Carlos tells him to do it. Even if this body is destroyed, his consciousness won't die. And Eric shoots him. Back to the all-ones timeline.
---

Dark Q leaps at Carlos, and crashes head-first into the wall, shorting out the illusion. Junpei is shocked, and Carlos says explanations can wait. He directs them to the Transporter Room. Carlos explains the bit about the overlapping wards. Junpei asks their destination. A holographic Zero taunts them. "It appears as if you've finally arrived." He says he no longer exists in this world. In the current history, he was executed by Carlos. As such, he will no longer be able to answer their questions. They are speaking to a recording. If they want answers, they should seek him where he is alive. However, in that history, the positions are reversed, and C-Team is dead. If they come, however, he'll share vital information. Hmm...this timeline is along the "Q-Team Executed at 13:30" timeline. Junpei wonders where that is. Carlos knows it's the one where they were executed. Junpei says they can't shift to a timeline where their bodies are already dead, and Carlos points to the transporter. Dark Q is approaching though...and there are only two input pods! They can't all three go. Carlos says he'll handle this. He tells them to go. He says he'll catch up with them. He promises, saying he's never broken one before. They're transported, and Carlos is being beaten up by Dark Q. He remembers Maria. She says she'll be waiting for him. He resolves not to die here. The transporter's broken now, but so is the Q-Bot. Carlos wonders how he gets to that history. Can't transport, can't SHIFT...it's crackling. Carlos says it doesn't look good, but then he says it might not be bad. This is his chance. Huh, that looked like the exact same explosion that occurred when Diana pushed the button in the Healing Room. New fragments for both C-Team and Q-Team. I stick with C-Team's. "Apocalypse". Akane thinks Carlos isn't coming. Junpei said he promised he'd come. He says he'll check the lounge. He enters Ward D's Lounge. Oh, right, because that's the one that actually connects to the Transporter Room. There's rubble blocking a door...oh. Right. This is after Phi gets injected with Radical-6. But that means the ones alive right now are D-Team! D-Team is being listed as "unauthorized escape"; there are still only five casualties listed on the board. Q is listed as still alive. Why is that, again? ...To be honest, it's all kind of confusing. D-Team sets the bomb with all six still alive, I think, but Mira stabbed Eric and Q in the timeline where she stole the Radical-6, didn't she? ...Oh, right, based on the timeline we now have, that would've happened before D-Team woke up. So Zero just outright lied to D-Team, probably, and Eric was already dead. But again, why is Mira dead and Q not? Other than, you know, Q's consciousness technically being in the Quantum Computer rather than his own body? Zero confirms this is the timeline where he's alive and they're dead. Now, the important information. To Akane: The history you find yourself in...is that one. The first Radical-6 patients have left. They should reach the hospital shortly. Akane says that's a lie; it has to be. He says it's not. Free the Soul's plan is progressing perfectly. Junpei figures it out. Zero is the founder of Free the Soul! Many call him Brother. Junpei says his shitty dream has doomed six billion people. Zero says that if they do nothing, an even worse future will come to pass. A religious fanatic will trigger a nuclear war with a terrorist attack. All of mankind, eight billion, will perish. The fanatic's identity is unknown. So Brother opted to kill six billion, giving him a 75% chance of killing the fanatic. To tell the truth, history has proven him right. Junpei says that to kill one person, he's willing to kill six billion people, and Zero says that it's to save two billion. He feels it's the ethical choice. Junpei and Akane are rightfully, righteously angry, but Zero says that's just the way of life. Sinner or innocent, people will die or be killed in an unjust manner. The theme of every story he's told.
---

But Zero's not done. He adds, "Like your parents, Akane Kurashiki." Akane demands answers. ...What. The man sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit was Akane's father. Her mother killed herself in grief. Akane says that's wrong; her parents died in an accident. Zero says that's what she'd likely been told, but it's a lie. This is the truth. Think of how different her life would be if he hadn't been falsely accused. She'd have never been involved in that child abduction case 10 years ago, nor would last year's incident have happened. And that means Junpei's path through life would've been drastically different, too. Junpei says that doesn't give him free reign to mess with people's lives, and Akane says only God decides who lives and dies. Zero chuckles, saying that to think that Akane of all people would invoke God. He says he'll let them see the true god they believe in. He points them to the clothing on the counter, asking them to take part in their ceremony on April 12, 2029. Which, uh, Akane did, at the end of VLR. Sort of. Akane says there's no way she'd ever come, and Zero says she will, if she ever escapes the shelter. Junpei says Diana will bring back a rescue team, but Zero points out that there's no reason she should think anyone's still alive down here. Also, midway through that last sentence, I just remembered which of our characters was confirmed to have a dead younger brother. I knew I hated him. (Not that I honestly believe he's capable of being Brother, but then again, my judgment of characters has been fairly spotty over the course of this series. Dio being evil was of course blindingly obvious, but I misjudged nearly everyone in 999 and wasn't great at VLR.)

Zero refers to this as a sacred site. The sacred site where the birth of Brother, founder of Free the Soul, occurred. Akane asks him to clarify--he was born here? Zero says yes, but raised elsewhere. ...Nope. Nope, nope, nope. He continues. "The moment we were born, we were transferred to the past via the transporter. Back to April 1904." Ah, okay, that doesn't invalidate the bit about Brother being old even in 2028. He's 124 years old. But Akane keyed on the word "we". She asks if he means his little brother. Zero says it's true he had a younger brother, but they were not related by blood. He was the son of the couple who raised him. His "we" refers to his younger sister, a person they know very well. Ah, but it appears he's spoken too long. But he'll impart to them something very important. The spell to open Pandora's Box. "Vive hodie." Remember those words well; they will come in handy someday. It's Latin for "Live for today". Scene cut. Akane wonders what happened to Carlos. Junpei figures they'll be stuck there together, just the two of them, forever. Akane thinks there's someone else. Or something. Oh, right, Gab's still here. Something in his collar. "Anagram". Which sentence are we rearranging? Junpei looks up at "When a curious hate oozes calamity", and reminds Akane of Ward C's Lounge. It said "Let the game end where I treat two". Akane manages to get "Together with me, we are ten", but there are leftover letters. Five extras...LDAET. Of course. The actual phrase is "Together with me, Delta, we are ten." Junpei finally notices that Q's not on the casualty board. We are ten... A wall blows open. A man in a fire suit walks through. He apologizes for the wait...then says he was the one who waited. It's Carlos! He's here to save them. And the credits roll yet again. Okay, time to sum things up.
---

I have to admit, this game threw some red herrings at me. The fact that Sigma specified "before 2009", after having previously said that Phi was born in 2008, seemed all too obvious. That's where the babies were sent, right? But according to Delta, they were actually sent to 1904. Both of them. So how did Phi end up in this century at this age? I of course can't help but notice that D-Team's phrase could clearly have "Zero" as one of its words. But anyway, what was Junpei thinking trying to connect Q and 10? Then again, we saw eight spare bodies for Q in the Quantum Computer Dome, along with the one he was using. That, too, would make ten with the addition of Delta/Brother/Zero. And on that note...I was so fixated on the error message "enter Q's name" that I completely failed to key on the fact that inputting "Zero" gave an equally custom error message: "Identity not known". Which it is now; it's Delta Klim. Full disclosure; when I went to that walkthrough and learned that my failing was never simply allowing the 20-second timer on Eric's demand for a killer to run out, I had already learned the name "Sean 729" and was kind of curious what I was doing wrong. I got as far as highlighting one letter before deciding that that wasn't the path I wanted to take. A D. Once I learned that Phi's twin brother was named "Delta", I had a hunch that that was the "D" I needed, but I wasn't about to test it without finding the answer in-game. But even then, I didn't key on the correct path. My assumption was that unlike Phi, Delta had been renamed by his adoptive parents. That he was Sean.

But first, we've got more after the credits. Junpei's angry at Carlos, because it turns out that the history he chose to SHIFT to after getting stranded by the exploding transporter was the only one where he knew he would still be alive. The one where he pushed the yellow button. Oh, that's why! "I can't leave with you guys. I made a promise in another history that I'd definitely save you two..." And then he went back in time ten months, and waited. Akane asks why he didn't use that time to stop Zero's plan, and Carlos says if he did that, he wouldn't have met them, right? ...Why does that actually make sense? That shouldn't make sense. This game, this series already has a buttload of stable time loops, from 12-year-old Akane only being able to save her own life because she was already 21 nine years later to baby Phi being sent back in time with a pendant obtained from 20-year-old Phi. Junpei says that that's a hell of a thing Carlos did. Mira and Eric died; Sigma lost his arms and an eye and he's in the hospital. Akane adds that the first Radical-6 patients have left. What happened today is going to result in six billion dead people. This is the end, and Akane has to start over from the beginning. They'll start now, and spend the next 45 years preparing for her plan. In 45 years, she'll call Sigma and Phi's consciousnesses to the future. Junpei volunteers to join her, join Crash Keys. Akane says he can't. She needs him to forget everything. And she's taken the face of the bracelet and stabbed him with it. The memory loss drugs. Akane says she'll never forget him...but please, forget her. He needs to forget. He says he doesn't want to...he'll never forget. No matter what happens, he won't. Carlos asks why she did it as Junpei passes out. She says she does it to accomplish her goals. Even if she loses her life, she'll make the AB Project a success.

...I feel like I still might've skipped a step. Inputting Delta causes Q to spin around and apologize, and fire away from the other two. And there's an anguished sound. "Sean, you..." Mira says, "Out of all your choices, you kill him?" Audentum Forsque Venusque iuvat. This is yet another destiny. This is called "Perceptive End". Huh, that was short. I guess I was fine after all.
---

The next Q-Team Fragment is simply called "Q". It seems to show Q in the transporter room...oh, it opens right after Eric shot the Carlos that fought with Akane. Q asks why, and Eric is still psychotic, says that Carlos was trying to make him look the fool, probably figured he wouldn't shoot, well he figured WRONG. He fires the gun again, then says he won't stop until they're all dead. Because one of us is the one who killed Mira. He accuses Q. He demands proof to the contrary. Maybe...

Q says maybe if he takes this helmet off, Eric will understand. I input 6140-4091. Just as before, it's his entire head that comes off. He admits he's not human. Eric says that makes him more suspicious, but Q says it's because he's human that he can't be. Wait, now he's supposed to be Three Laws Compliant? He cuts his hand, and his blood is white--just like the blood in Old Sigma's arms. ...Oh. Mira struggled with her attacker; she had red blood under her fingernails! Q realizes that he might not remember, because of the memory loss, but when he tried to revive her, he noticed again. So Q has at least proven that he's not the killer...but once again, Eric says it doesn't change the fact that him existing is suspicious. Goddamnit Eric you said that about Sigma and Diana too. And Q admits that he's there because Zero brought him in. That's all Eric needs to hear, but Sigma and Diana try to stop him, saying that if what Q said is true, then he can tell them who Zero is. Eric lowers the gun and asks Q if he knows. Q nods. Eric demands that Q give Zero's real name. He starts to, but it's decision game time; we have to input it ourselves. The real Zero is...you, Delta! He's pointing directly at the screen...

Aw, hell, the Perceptive End was in first-person, too! ...Wait, I shouldn't be surprised. The Zero of 2074 turned out to be Sigma, the character we were controlling, and at the end of 999, we learned that everything on the bottom screen, the one where we were actually performing all the puzzles, was 12-year-old Akane. So the fact that the player is actually controlling Zero is natural. The shifting viewpoint characters masked it, but Diana repeatedly said that it felt like her decisions were not her own. I thought it was just lampshading the nature of games, but it makes sense. Zero--Delta is physically there, and imposing his will. Hell, it even makes sense that he'd have a morphogenetic field connection with Diana since she's his birth mother. Diana believes she's heard that name before, as has Sigma. Q says they wouldn't know, since they transported into this history. And now, Eric says, "Would you stop yapping, Sean!" It's definitely Eric; we see his mouth move. Damn, I thought it sounded a bit like Eric's voice in the Perceptive End, but... "This old man's name is Q!" Diana agrees, and Sigma says "That's what he was called at Dcom." ...Oh, hell. The senior citizen who Sean shared his dreams with. It was Delta. Of course it was; Delta is probably over a century Sean's senior. Sort of. I guess from another point of view, Sean died before Delta was born. Sean says that yeah, he always called him that, as did Mira. And we finally view Delta. He looks surprisingly like The Sorrow, but his glasses are red shades. But Eric is surprised to see "Q" stand. He says that Sean is completely correct. Huh, for a second when Eric called the young robot "Sean", I thought that he was, in fact, Delta/Zero, but no, something about Sean accusing the old man of being Zero suddenly made everyone remember that the young boy's name is Sean, not Q. This "Q" says his real name is Delta, and Sigma is surprised, as the old man was supposed to be deaf.
---

A flashback to everyone being moved into the facility. They're told they'll all be living together, and someone, I think it's Junpei, asks if that includes the old man in the wheelchair. The old man is identified as "Q", and the others are told that he can't walk, see, or hear. Hah, that explains everything. All of them just disregarded his presence, because they believed that he couldn't see or hear them anyway. He could be present with any group, off-camera, and they'd never address him, never acknowledge him. They ask why he's there, then. A flashback to Mira explaining the purpose of Dcom, but with a twist. They were supposed to figure out how strangers would deal with a problem...only this time, Eric replies, "Like the chair-bound old man... They put us in a difficult position on purpose, to observe how we'd get out." But it was all a lie. He removes his glasses, and Sigma realizes that they're a screen. He was viewing all security footage of them, spying on them...but only in histories where he is alive. ...Because he's the real Q. Not Seanbot. Q isn't listed on the casualty list in the apocalypse timeline because Delta isn't dead. That's why "Sean" didn't work. It's not Q's real name--Delta is! Eric demands Sigma take off his clothes, but Delta says there's no need. "This is what you wanted to see, correct?" And he lowers his turtleneck, revealing scratches. Hm...yes, he has exactly the right build to be the cloaked figure, too, the one that killed D-Team after their escape from the Healing Room. Sigma tells Eric not to shoot. They won't be able to ask him anything if Eric shoots him. They ask him if he was the one who killed Junpei, too, and he says Mira did that. She was, in a sense, a collaborator. She was a necessary element of his plan, but it wasn't as though he gave her a specific set of orders. He simply let her roam free and do as she pleased. Though she was exempted from the drug injections. She's a serial killer, "The Heart Ripper". Many innocent people lost their lives because of what she's done. He only gave her her due punishment. As usual, Eric doesn't believe it. Hm, yes, it's all coming together. Mira's first victim was the woman from 17 years ago; the wrongly accused man was Akane's father. I'm still sticking with the child who was unable to receive life-saving surgery as a result of the taxi accident being Sean. Delta says that in another history, Eric, Sigma, and Diana were all murdered by her. Eric refuses to believe it. He wants to shoot Delta now. Sean stops him. Eric says the X-Door will never open again, but Sean says it will. Sigma asks Delta how. Delta says that Sean needs to get direct access to the central computer. But he needs to extend a cable from his neck to the console. But the cover is shut. Eric demands the code. Delta gives it. 3808-0832. Sean connects the cable and starts to open the X-Door. Then the shotgun fires. Sigma and Sean have both been shot. Eric claims his hand just... Delta says he has no more use for this history. God damn it. We learned about this in 999! With enough control over the morphogenetic field, you can outright make other people do things. The examples they used there were all goofy, but...Delta's been doing that all game. That's why Diana and Carlos occasionally made physical decisions that disagreed with their mental desires. By playing Zero Time Dilemma, you are, in fact, letting Delta control Diana, Carlos, and Sean. And Eric's pleading with Delta not to do this, as he's forcibly made to put the barrel of the gun beneath his own chin and blow his head off. Delta speaks a single word to Diana: "Mom." Roll credits yet again. I'll grab the bad ends to this path before continuing on. For the helmet code, putting in a wrong answer just clears it, and you have to exit out to get the unknown, but you can accuse anyone of being Zero (I went with Mira for the lulz.)
---

I mean, come on, Eric was going to blow up at him regardless. That was the most fun. Eric's gone mad. Again he shoots everyone. Also, the game automatically sent my cursor to the Zero Identification after I got the helmet code bad end first. Ha, he even shoots himself at the end of it.

The one thing I'm still missing...no, wait, I'm not missing anything, am I? I almost forgot that Delta gave C-Team the passcode to their Force Quit Box. But I'm still going to do D first, then Q, and then C. Brooch. Music box. Images flash through Diana's head, culminating with herself and Sigma holding the two babies. She wraps her arms around Phi, crying. Phi gets a sudden flash of insight, and she's in disbelief. She somehow realizes the truth. "Diana, you're..." Sigma joins the family hug. He tells Diana she doesn't have to say anything. This is enough for now. Wait, that was the whole fragment? Q's looks a little longer. 3808-0832. The cover opens, and Sean says all they need to do is insert the plug. The others ask where the plug is, and he opens the panel on his head and says if they input the right numbers there... Mira rightly asks what numbers for his head have to do with the plug for the central computer. He says he should just do it; they'll understand then. Eric tells him to stop avoiding the question. Okay, never mind, it only looks longer because there's a second Decision Game, where I need to input 6140-4091. Eric freaks out when he sees that Sean's head just popped off. Cut to an hour later, where Eric still hasn't gotten over the fact that Sean's a robot. He puts his head back on, and Eric finds this more acceptable, saying the shape brings out his eyes. Mira is surprised that that is any better for him. Sean points out that Mira's surprisingly calm, and she says that not much fazes her; she's just that type. Sean says he was surprised when he first found out; his heart was in his throat. Eric says that he doesn't have a heart! Mira keys on "when he first found out", and he says it happened to him before, in another history. A flash through all of the other Q timelines. He says his thought center is in the Quantum Computer, not in this body. Then he explains a quantum state, one where all possibilities exist. Basically, his brain is an infinite number of worlds and possibilities. Oh, and this allows him to SHIFT. He then explains "Quantum Mind", the idea that the human mind is a kind of quantum computing. If certain conditions are met, they, too, can jump to other histories. God damn, this is scary. Eric, as expected, thinks it's crazy talk. Sean doesn't blame him for not believing him. He says he'll start at the beginning, but first, he has to attach to the computer. The screen gets staticky and cuts out, like at the end of a fragment. For a moment, I figure that Sean's making sure Delta can't see him explaining things. But the fragment's not over. It cuts to the Force Quit Box. The message has changed. I see the spots where the brooch and music box are to be set. Damnit, I did them in reverse order still, didn't I? C-Team opens the box, Q-Team turns on the computer, and D-Team activates the program. "Force Quit Program on Standby. To initiate, two key items must be set." They puzzle over what the mother's mementos could be. Are they hidden around here? Sean points out that even if they are, the three of them don't have the time. They're knocked out by the bracelets.

"Vive hodie." "To execute the Force Quit Program, the Central Control Computer must be booted." Junpei doesn't think they've ever seen one of those. Then he asks Carlos how he knew that password. He doesn't know. Akane wonders if he SHIFTed from another timeline. He gets the flood of memories and realizes it's true. He says he needs to think about something, and does so for an hour. Akane asks him to share what he's been thinking about, and he says he's been thinking about her, and starts hitting on her. Didn't see that coming.
---

He's not wrong about Akane being hot, though. He continues that they may never make it out of this shelter. You know what that means, right? I can't stop laughing; this game's been non-stop thrills and at this crucial point, it suddenly decides to be silly again. Junpei is angry, of course. Carlos says, "Oh look, a neanderthal is trying to block my way." What's gotten into him? Did a new Carlos SHIFT into this body, one who's a royal asshole? Junpei throws Carlos off of Akane. Carlos runs off. Okay, now we're back to, uh...I feel like this was supposed to be a Batman Gambit by Carlos? But it still doesn't totally make sense. He says he supposes he couldn't control himself. Junpei starts wailing on him, but of course, Carlos is stronger so it doesn't do much damage. Okay, yeah, Carlos wanted Junpei to start beating him up over this. I have no idea why, but he did. Akane asks if Carlos is alright. He says that was nothing, and asks Junpei if he wants to have a drink, to clean the slate between them. He asks if this glass is okay, and then shatters it in his hand. He blames Junpei, saying his hands are shaky after all of Junpei's punches, and asks them to help him clean it up. He thanks them, and Junpei is totally confused. Then they're put to sleep. I have no idea why Carlos did what he did; I suspect it's to screw with Zero but it still doesn't make much sense.

Last new segment for each team, but just like the very first one, the preview image is identical for all three teams. Even though C-Team is the one that only has one ending thus far, to the other two teams' two apiece... D-Team deserves this. They just realized that they're mother, father, and daughter, and it's their son/brother who's responsible for all of this. The fragment name is Final Decision.

Sigma threw something at the wall and dispels the illusion, having received the memories. The other two teams come in. Carlos, still with his bruises from inducing Junpei to beat him up. Junpei, Akane. Eric, Mira...and Sean, right? Phi asks Carlos what happened, and he calls it "proof of friendship". Junpei is not amused. Diana asks why they're here, since the schedule says they should both still be asleep. Carlos says they took a page out of her book. Oh! When Carlos had Junpei and Akane join him behind the bar; when Sean cut the feed...they were using the cards. They put them in there, blocking the needle. They remember everything. Junpei and Akane, too. They've gotten back the memories they forgot...or rather, downloaded them from the morphogenetic field. Phi confirms they have the memories of other histories, too. They're like them. Mira tells them to hold up. The two of them are different. They don't have other histories' memories. They learned everything from Sean. He interrupted the communications to let them in on the secret. Sigma says those two make sense, but what about Sean? He says he's a robot, so being injected does nothing to him. He was merely forced into sleep mode at the time limits, and the previous ninety minutes' memories deleted. When he accessed the computer, he hacked his own system as well, to prevent that from happening. Oh...Carlos whispered his plan to Akane when he pretended to attack her. Tell her to go to the Transporter Room and grab the cards. And so Zero wouldn't get suspicious, he distracted him by "casually inviting" Junpei into the Power Room, and tells the others they can see the result of their conversation. Junpei says Carlos should've told him what was up, and he says if he did, Zero would figure it out. He thinks Junpei looks like he'd be a crap actor. And, yes, they hid from the cameras behind the bar to get the cards. So now everyone knows what happened in the other histories, right? Diana wants confirmation. Mira says Sean told her and Eric everything. Diana wonders why they know about the other histories. Akane says it's probably...and then a click, like the shotgun. "You want to know?" Delta's voice.
---

Yup, I called it right. Delta, who they call Q, is holding the shotgun. Or maybe it's actually Zero. Delta invites them to call him by his given name, and directly gives it as Delta. Diana looks pissed, and Delta tells her there's no need to look so threatening, as she was the one who named him. He first addresses the members of C- and D-Teams and confirms that they all know that they're SHIFTers. He asks them to think back on their path to this moment, and if they came here from a linear flow of time. None of them did. And not just this once. They've been SHIFTing back and forth many times, allowing them to boldly take chances, like jumping from tree branch to tree branch. They've forgotten that, possibly because of the medicine, possibly as a side effect of SHIFTing. But their memories have been kept firmly intact, in the morphogenetic field. They've regained those memories, like a levee collapsing at a slight trigger. Sean is a similar case, because his thought center is located in the Quantum Computer. Eric asks about himself and Mira, and Zero says they're like him, in that they can't SHIFT. Mira's surprised to hear that about him. Frankly, so am I. He says he has another power though. The power to Mind Hack. He can read other people's minds, and knows the thoughts that go through their heads. That's why he knows what Phi is trying to do right now. ...Damnit Delta, this is supposed to be serious, and you had to pick the one member of the party that we'd believe you had a mind link with even if this wasn't a crazy sci-fi setting. Oh, she was trying to set her brooch into the Force Quit Box. He tells her to step away from it. Akane confirms that Zero saw through their ruse when they blocked the injections. He wants them all to play the final Decision Game. He finds human decisions fascinating. Specifically, the branches they create. That's why, after learning of SHIFTers through their minds, he set this up. Carlos says he did this all out of curiosity. Hmm, sounds familiar. Zero says when a person does something significant, it's often hard to boil their motivation down to one word. To fulfill several objectives, it was necessary to trap all of them in here. Diana asks why he did it. Delta confirms what I suspected. It was the stable time loop. It was to ensure that Diana gave birth to himself and Phi. Eric, as expected, is the one to ask for clarification, because he represents the everyman thrust into this crazy world. Delta explains that he and Phi are the children of Diana and Sigma. Junpei's confused now. November 16, 2029, Phi and Delta were born in this shelter, in another history. Shortly after, the atomic data that makes up their bodies was transported to April 1904. At the time, the transporter was located in a German research facility. Carlos realizes what this means, and Delta confirms that he's 124 years old. Mira points out that Phi isn't, and he reveals that a German researcher sent her to 2008. Records indicate she was part of an experiment. Sigma says that in 2008, the device was being studied in an American research facility. That's when an old couple who were researchers took her in. Delta says they've gone off topic, but that was one of the major goals. Everything that happened here, in all histories, went into creating Delta and Phi, in their current forms. Sean wonders about this last bit, and Delta says he should already know about epigenetics. Oh, right the environmental factors that determine which switches are activated. And reproductive cells are the ones most affected...hence, why he had to make his parents play the Decision Game. ...Wow. This actually hits close to home for me. Time to jump out of the game world for a moment, and jump into the real world.

March 4, 1986
Approximately 10 AM Eastern Standard Time
---

Even though Bergen County, New Jersey, is just over the bridge from NYC, company policy forces a 26-year-old woman, married not even a year and a half and just starting to consider starting a family, to instead attend a regional training course in rural Somerset County, an area which she is unfamiliar with. Originally, she was supposed to be taking a coworker with her, but the coworker cancels. She misses her turn, and as she thinks, "should I have turned there?", she turns to look at the directions on the empty passenger seat. The steering wheel turns, and she swerves into the oncoming traffic lane, striking another car. The driver of the other car is killed, but the woman, though her car was totaled to the point that the owner of the auto body shop assumed that she couldn't have made it, escapes alive, though severely injured. However, to this day, she isn't certain if she was pregnant at the time and lost the baby in the accident, or if it was merely the trauma of the accident itself that caused her to miss her period.

In this timeline, I, born March 31, 1989, am that woman's firstborn child. But what if there's another timeline where a child was born to them in November of 1986? Would I still be born at all? I feel like the answer is no. Even using "regular" science, the ovulation process stops during pregnancy. My mother would've missed far more than just that one month if she had been pregnant, so it would've been a different egg that dropped in July of 1988--assuming my parents were even ready for a second child that soon; my only sibling wasn't born until 1993--and so the exact pairing of egg and sperm that created me would've never met up. Hell, even if there wasn't already a fetus there, the accident still delayed them starting a family. They've confirmed that much. My grandmother even told my mother at one point "you didn't survive to have a child. You survived to have that child." So as much as I want to at times dismiss this game as sci-fi mumbo jumbo, I can't deny this one.

Back to the game; Sean explains that by forcing Diana and Sigma into a crisis situation, he created an epigenetic change in their reproductive cells, and that's why their children were born with unique powers. Delta confirms this to be true. He asks D-Team if they remember what was on their wall. "When a curious hate oozes calamity". And rearranging the letters gets... "What you choose can materialize us." Our decisions will bring you to life. Carlos says he understands why Diana and Sigma had to go through that, but why the others? He reiterates that his motives are complex. Then Phi flips out on him. "FUCK YOU YOU OLD MAN!" She charges him. Sigma cries out at her not to, and Delta aims the shotgun, but Phi's flying kick lands, and Delta crashes into the wall, dropping the gun. Which, uh, I just remembered doesn't lower the danger at all because he's a mind hacker. Hell, it even landed right at Eric's feet. Though he is of course pointing it at Delta, saying it's over. Delta says Eric may be right. Phi tosses the brooch to Diana and tells her to put it in. She does, and the music box too. The box verifies the setting of the key items. Executing Force Quit Program. Ten minutes to explosion. Oh fuck you Delta! D-Team reacts incredulously, and Delta gives his best evil laugh. Eric demands an explanation, and Delta says it's exactly as the voice said. They've activated the self-destruct mechanism. Mira tells Sean to access the central computer, but Delta says it's too late; once the Force Quit Program has been activated, it can't be undone. But he'll tell them one good, no, two good things. First, he suggests checking behind the bar counter. C-Team reacts in shock, wondering why he'd do that...HE KILLED GAB! THAT BASTARD!
---

Eric asks Delta if he killed Gab, and he confirms it and gives the shotgun Eric now holds as the murder weapon. He says there wasn't much life left in Gab anyway. Sean calls him a monster, and Delta says he never expected that from him. And the other thing? He can Mind Hack. They say he already told them that, but he says he didn't explain it fully, and explains the bit about controlling others' bodies. And he gives an example...and forces Eric to shoot him! Phi understands. Delta says it's time for the Final Decision Game. They have two choices. One. To stay here and wait to die. The other is... The other is... And Delta dies. Junpei tries to revive him to learn what the other option is. Scene cut. Five minutes to explosion. Eric asks about the X-Door, and Mira reminds him that the door will stay closed until six people die. Akane says she has an idea. All of them will SHIFT, together. Mira and Eric point out that they can't SHIFT. Sean reminds them of what he told them about quantum mind. With certain conditions, anyone can do it. They need danger...and they need to be in the vicinity of a group of SHIFTers. Carlos gets it. They'll resonate, and Mira and Eric will be able to join them. Sigma asks where they'll go, and Phi says none of the similar histories will work, as one of the teams will be dead after the vote.

...But there's one other history where all nine of them are still alive. I don't even have to wait for the game to reveal it to me. It's the one where Carlos called "red".

Diana continues that they can't SHIFT if there's no body to jump to, and Akane says they need to jump to when they're all alive. Diana realizes it. So does Carlos. The history where they won the coin toss. Mira's not sure what's going on, but it sounds like a good idea. Sigma says there's no way they could do that. Phi explains that SHIFTing isn't just jumping into new bodies, and Carlos adds the bit about swapping. Junpei says they'd be dooming their other selves, and they'd have no idea why they died. Mira, of course, doesn't understand what the problem with that is. They got to do the coin toss one time and win, and they're off living without a care. Isn't that unfair? Sigma says that she's saying "they", but they're talking about themselves here. Phi isn't so sure. Junpei agrees. If they here are their true versions, then the them in the other history are essentially strangers. Sigma says that's even more reason not to. Carlos agrees with Sigma, as does Diana. Those people did nothing wrong. They won at a coin toss. Junpei says the only thing they did was lose a coin toss, and they had to go through so much shit. Eric says that the bodies in those histories are theirs anyway. Mira agrees, and says they shouldn't second-guess themselves. One minute left. Akane sums things up, and Phi realizes that's what Delta meant. The Final Decision Game.

Bad endings first, always. Don't SHIFT. The base blows up. But it says...all fragments complete? I return to the Final Decision and opt to SHIFT. And it immediately takes me to the Fragment Select screen, full complement. Ah, but there's a new exclamation point below the first ending. You know, the one we got all the way back in post 1? "Payoff 2". Right, the first ending was called "Payoff."

Nevada Desert--DCom. December 31, 2028, 12:06 PM. They can't remember anything. Akane feels like she made a bet with someone. Everyone's confused. Phi wonders if they all forgot what happened. Mira asks if she could ask all of them something. Who is this kid? ...Oh, this was before they shifted in. That's why it seemed so familiar.We see the lights come in. They come to, and Sigma asks if they did it. Diana says they're not wearing the bracelets, so she doesn't know the time, but...Phi says based on the position of the sun, it's probably noonish. Sigma asks about the date, and Phi asks how she should know.
---

Sean asks Mira and Eric if they remember him. They said they do. C-Team rejoices that it worked. But then Delta gives his catchphrase. "Life is unfair. Don't you think?" He's accompanied by Gab.

"Seventeen years ago... A snail traveled down a narrow path in the park. If that snail hadn't been there, perhaps all of you here would've lived a completely different life than you did." You know, aside from Carlos, I think Delta's right. Mira's life would be different, and therefore Eric's. Akane's would be different, and therefore Junpei's. And Sean's life would be different, and therefore Delta's own, and thus, that of his biological family. Okay, that's a bit of a stretch, but you can't say that Phi, Sigma, and Diana aren't tied up in this, because this whole thing is their stupid stable time loop. "Just one small snail. And everyone's lives...even the world...changed."

Eric and Junpei tell him to quit talking nonsense. Diana's glad Gab was safe. Delta says, "Of course we were. You SHIFTed in from another history." Junpei says they should call the cops, and Delta asks what that will accomplish. Eric says it should be obvious; they're throwing him in the slammer. Delta asks what his crime was, and Carlos says Murder. Ah, but he murdered no one in this history! He says as much. He doubts the police will listen. Akane points out the other histories, and Delta reminds them that he can't SHIFT. He only knows anything of those histories because he mind hacked them. In a sense, the Delta they know is a different person than the one before them. Can he be charged for killing someone in another history? If so, this world would be filled with criminals of all kinds. Sean suggests "conspiracy to commit". Carlos agrees; he's betting this history has a bunch of dangerous machines and gimmicks all over the shelter. Delta says unfortunately, he's removed them all. They've slept for quite a while. ...Goddamnit, it's the Sleeping Beauty Problem again! It's not December 31. It's January 1st at the very least. No transporter, no quantum computer...is it sad that I expected that in this history, they were never there in the first place? Because honestly in this series, "they were only there in the history where you lost the coin flip" is more likely than "we just knocked you all out for a long time to remove everything". Remember, K is literally Kyle Klim in two thirds of the timelines and Akane Kurashiki in the remaining third. "Sean is able to move right now because of radio signals from a satellite." They look at Delta, and he asks if they aren't happy. In this history, not a single person has died. Phi and he exist, and there will never be an outbreak of Radical-6. Only a bright future awaits. Isn't this what you'd call a happy end? Junpei reminds him that he himself said that all of mankind will die if time passes and nothing is done. The religious fanatic, the terrorist attack that sparks a nuclear war. Carlos says Delta said he released Radical-6 to kill that person. Delta says that the him before them did not say that, but he can't deny it's true. Radical-6 won't spread throughout the world in this history, so the religious fanatic will live. Phi asks where that happy future Delta talked about was, and Delta is interested that Phi is angry about this. If so, we have a serious contradiction. He had prepared a future in another history where 2 billion would survive. But she decided to jump to this history. She chose a future where humanity goes extinct over one where 6 billion die. Carlos says Delta's wrong; that nothing in the future has been determined yet. They'll shape the future with their own hands. Everyone agrees with him. They vow to stop that future. Delta gives his evil laugh again. He says he told them in another history that his motives were complex. Imagine in another history that none of them had experienced the events that occurred in that shelter.
---

They're so determined now to change the future...one of the goals of all of this was to get them into that frame of mind. !!! He said...that if time passes and nothing is done, humanity will die out. What if this qualifies as something being done? Delta says it's all going according to plan without a single casualty...he created a future where mankind will be saved. He asks if that upsets them. Are they angry that their life was played with? Very well. He'll give them all one last choice. He takes out a pistol and tosses it to Carlos. He will choose whether to shoot Delta or allow him to leave, and he promises he won't Mind Hack Carlos. "Pull the trigger, or let me go. The fates of you, me, and mankind are all on the line - This is the Decision Game."

It cuts, once more, to the credits. I expected to actually get to choose before the credits rolled. I can't press A to skip them this time.

"It's thanks to the support of our fans that this project was completed. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

--Zero Time Dilemma Staff"

CQD-End 2.

Huh, I had it wrong. The 13:30 votes were stacked on top of each other, too. Goddamn flowchart would've provided a hint all along if I'd been looking at it harder. Or was it always like that? It definitely seems more stretched-out than it used to be. Ah, because it's putting everything in proper time frames. The "push the button" endings of FCFS are now placed six hours after the button pushes themselves. Now, no longer are any segments of different colors placed at the same heights on the timeline, save for the Final Decision being at the same height as the Stranded Pair. Makes sense, since that's after the end of the game. A little disappointed that they didn't lengthen that line further to put The Hope of Two as the lowest point on the flowchart.

It's full. The flowchart is completely full.
---

Ha, but my first instinct is "Okay, finally done with this game, I can finally go to TV Tropes." And, uh...apparently a bunch of new stuff pops up in the File section after you complete the game. First, the graph of the active time. Next...since the wards are actually one, the vent that Gab travels through in fact just leads to a small room where he often rests on a rug. Basically, they go to the doghouse. Next, the summary of the murder 17 years ago, with little bits of information added--like the confirmation that the true murderer was a girl, and the falsely accused a Japanese man. All things we already figured. Next, what happened after the apocalypse timeline...when young Sigma returned. Diana's dying, and she says it was fate. The elder Sigma told her that. She's on the moon...she had followed him in May of 2029. Ah, yes, we sort of got this story in VLR, from Kyle. Next, the translation of the last Latin phrase, "Audentum Forsque Venusque iuvat". Both love and luck favor the bold. Next, the information that the robot has never been called anything other than Sean by those in the underground shelter. That's bullshit! Next, the game says that the Phi that remained in 1904 became a brilliant scientist and worked at a research facility in the US well into her 100s--namely, the one that was researching the transporter in 2008. Phi did say she was taken in by an elderly couple of researchers...I almost figured this could be the case. So Phi's adoptive mother was herself, 104 years older.

Next, half a year after Payoff. Carlos and Maria are walking on a beach. Carlos still tears up every time he sees her smile. Maria gets on his case for fussing over her too much, asking what Junpei and Akane would think. He can't be helping her; that's the point of her rehab. She's been confined to a bed for so long, after all. They found the cure for Reverie Syndrome, Carlos and Junpei did. Maria can tell that Carlos is thinking of the two right now by the way he's smiling. He'll be going to their wedding. The three of them, Carlos, Junpei, and Akane, are searching for the terrorist that Delta warned them about. Cut to Akane and Junpei at the Crash Keys base; Junpei writing the invitation. Or a progress report; Junpei promised Aoi that he wouldn't marry Akane until they'd dealt with the fanatic. He says in his letter that he'd like nothing more than to get the approval and blessing of their old friends, and those of you they met six months ago. Yay, Clover and Light will be back! I missed them. Seven, too. Junpei reminds Akane that there's still a history out there where he's still searching for her as an old man. Akane reminds him that this is their reality.

Sean, Eric, and Mira. Sean's joining Eric in visiting Mira...in jail. She turned herself in, at Eric's suggestion. Eric and Mira got married in the jail. Mira asks Eric if he regrets that. According to Sean, Mira carved his heart out in another history. Sean uses his quantum computing again. He says she can never completely pay for all of her crimes in this timeline. And then...he breaks open the plexiglass of the Visitor Room! He's breaking Mira out...and guiding her to the transporter. The only way she can truly clear her sins...is to go back in time and stop her younger self from ever committing murder in the first place. That's what he says.

...Huh. Come to think of it, I guess that's not bullshit. The other players never do refer to Sean as "Q", do they? The only time that name is ever mentioned is by the computer announcing casualties...and the X-Passes for Q are "AGE" and "SELF". And they're...huh? Ah...the only time Q ever dies is when Q-Team is executed, either by the 13:30 vote or by FCFS. It's all supported. Delta was always there as Q. He was always part of Q-Team.
---

Ah, but TV Tropes gives me something that the game directly didn't. I suppose it's in another interview somewhere. I had, by the end, realized that Mira's first victim wasn't her own mother after all. But I thought it was just someone. It wasn't. It was Eric's mother.

And furthermore, when Carlos was fighting the Dark Sean, it was Maria's actual consciousness that came to encourage him in his time of need. Control or not, she's still a powerful esper, after all. Though perhaps it's because Carlos had unlocked his own esper abilities that she finally gained some semblance of control, as all espers came in pairs in 999.

And oh, holy crap, I'm going through all three games' character pages...it's there! On thering finger of the elderly Akane in VLR! The ring Junpei gave her. But, how? Shouldn't those be two different timelines?

...No. She's wearing it on her right hand! Wow, that is some little touch. That's beautiful.

Oh. The Decision Game. That's pretty smart. I didn't even notice that. The AB Game was also called a Nonary Game, just like the old Nonary Games, but this one never was...because there were 10 players from the start. And because there isn't actually any etymological connection, I didn't even notice...that the proper prefix was there all along. And, haha, there's no number nine door, but the key door has an X on it. A fucking 10! I should've been wise to that from 999's "q/kyu" bit, but there hadn't been any numbered doors anywhere; the Number 9 door in VLR was the only one. So the lack of any numbered door didn't seem odd. It was a ten all along!

Also, and I think I knew this, the previous distress signal was CQD. In fact, the story goes that a ship heard the Titanic's distress signal but didn't recognize it for what it was because they still used CQD. What an interesting bit!

Zero Time Dilemma is itself an anagram. "Me, I'm Zero, I'm Delta".

Reversing the code to Sean's helmet gives you 1904-0416. 4/16/1904. We know for a fact that that's at the very least the month and year that the twins were sent to.

There's some sort of status screen involving the dolls from the study. Their doll types somehow relate to them. But interestingly, the matryoshka that represents Sean isn't used as Q's symbol to maintain the ruse. And there are, in fact, ten dolls--the Zero Doll was in the Pod Room!

Eric and Mira freak out at the beginning when they learn their leader is to be Q...which makes sense, as they believed Q to be an blind, deaf, and crippled old man. And Zero didn't address Sean, so there was no reason for him to be in Ward Q.

Sean theorizes that Zero made up FBR, which explains why Mira went insane in the route where they injected themselves with Radical-6. The usual effects. Also, Q intentionally put himself on the team with no Espers so they wouldn't sense him.

The Mexican Standoff is called "Triangle", despite having four endings. But the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet is...Delta. Which looks like a triangle.
---

Oh wow, this just keeps coming.

Way back at the beginning of the game Eric wonders where the kid came from. We now know "the kid" to be Sean, but at the time, we thought he was the one called "Q". Mira suggests that the kid's the result of someone's bad decision, a one-night stand...and teases Diana that it's her. "Q" is the result of Diana's...well, not "one-night stand", but certainly a child born out of wedlock.

"Me" or "Myself" would've gotten a different failure message in the standoff, saying you can't commit suicide. Hint that "Q" is not the same person as the one holding the crossbow. Also, as early as the payoff ending, no one's questioning who Q is, but they don't recognize the boy with the helmet. ...Argh, and when Eric seems to be asking a question to Gab, he calls him "old man". The angle was wrong, there, he's actually directly asking Delta! Certain angles in Q-Team's FCFS suggest the shadow of a fourth person, and Eric again talks about an old man in a chair. When other teams talk about the death of Q, they mention that he can't see or hear. And when Eric gets shot by the crossbow after Sean tries to shoot Mira, Mira responds by firing twice. Same goes for any other time that Sean is killed by something other than the executions or the grenade launcher. Hah, there's even one point...I mentioned it. The announcement already called Q dead, when Sean still wasn't, in the "Shoot Mira" ending.

There are actually five anagrams in this game. Let's inhibit the virus is "The truth is invisible"--I don't see that in my notes so I think it was revealed in the area eaten by the purge. Then there's "Together with me, Delta, we are ten", and "What you choose can materialize us." The English publishers added in the Zero Time Dilemma/Me, I'm Zero, I'm Delta bit. But Sean had every reason to think that Fanatic Bio R was just a Fabrication.
---

Up.
---

Again, since the next game's not ready yet
---

So yeah, the topic title was running out of letters anyway; I knew full well that there'd be games not tagged in the title. I mean, technically DDLC will be part of this series but I'll probably be streaming that on my Twitch channel.

Up next, though? Not AA6, and not DDLC. Instead, the next game will be Detective Pikachu.
---

Nice opening cinematics. It's pretty silly, because every time he tries to speak to humans, it comes out as "Pika Pika". He's not sure why he can understand the humans but they can't understand him. Now we come to our human protagonist, Tim Goodman, who came to Ryme City looking for clues to his dad's disappearance. An Aipom steals his brochure for the Baker Detective Agency, and also a necklace belonging to a young girl...but Tim can understand Detective Pikachu. The Aipom run off, and we give chase. They throw hot dogs with too much ketchup at us...this game's certainly making sure to differentiate itself from the anime, at any rate. A lot of quick time events. The Aipom get away again, but they've left a trail. We ask someone which way they went, but we quickly learn that Tim can't be seen talking too openly to Pikachu or he seems weird. Pikachu gives a signal for when he's got something to say. It's tough to move around. And Pikachu can get testimony from other Pokmon. It's a Diggersby that eventually confirms that the ketchup-tailed one, not the paint-tailed one, is the one that has the necklace. This is a very trying tutorial. Just let me do things! I didn't even choose easy mode. Pikachu says he's a great detective. Finally, we get a title card for Chapter 1, Tahnti Park. Unconscious Aipom with a Tamato Berry in its tail; seems to be the one we were chasing but the necklace is gone. We look for clues, and find a black feather under the Aipom, which has scratches on its face. Maybe it got in a fight with a Murkrow? It also seemed to have been in a tree, so that suggests something that would live in a tree. Our first potential witness is busy looking for a pen he lost. Another witness suggests it might be the Pidove around here, and tells us how to get them to return after we frightened them off. Another witness tells us there are three areas to this park. This is the fountain area, and to the right is the cafe area; to the left is the nature area. This area has Pidove; Taillow are near the cafe; and in the nature area, Starly and Murkrow. Heh, my initial suspect is still alive! We have to visit the cafe area to get food to lure the birds anyway, but Taillow doesn't have any black, so that's out. But Starly and Pidove are both still potential suspects even though I figure it's probably Murkrow. I head off to the nature area first by mistake, but Starly is very helpful, telling us that Murkrow often goes off to collect shiny things for its nest. Also the Aipoms are jerks to Starly too. There's one here that we need to interview, but a rowdy Poochyena wants to play and is scaring it off. Another human witness confirms that Murkrow fights with Aipom. We have to find the other Poochyena so Mightyena can put them down for their afternoon nap. We find it and can interview Aipom, and learn that it got attacked by Murkrow for infringing on its territory while playing with Poochyena. We learn Murkrow's nest is in the thick tree near the pond, and finally get confirmation that it's a Murkrow feather. Pikachu climbs the tree to investigate the nest, and finds evidence in the form of another feather, but Murkrow returns. Time to interrogate the suspect. Murkrow claims to have lost the necklace during the fight. It says Burmy were in the tree, too. We head back to the tree and interrogate the Burmy. They're not helpful...they're afraid. They mention a ball flying around. A scary black-and-white ball. And one of the Burmy got caught up in the fight and is missing. We have to shake other trees to look for it. The first one we try yields a Ferroseed instead. Oh, the soccer ball that Scraggy and the boy are playing with! One of them got hit by it last night and its Cloak broke...ah, those are the leaves we found near Aipom! Also, something small went running off, but it didn't seem like Burmy. Heading to the cafe area, we find Tepig in a bush. It was looking for Berries, and it found a coin. And in a big tree, there was a Wormadam...no, three Wormadam. And the missing Burmy.
---

They're protective of the Burmy. They won't even let us speak to it directly without proof it's involved. Which we have but can't present for some reason. We get the Pidove food and some coffee, which Pikachu loves. Ah, we get information that the trash disappeared. It's still not enough, and Taillow and Pidove are no help. Well, I haven't the time to deal with this right now. That'll be all for tonight, probably.
---

Ah, I see. I had to talk to an old man who gives us the relevant information about Burmy and their cloaks. I'm about to head back to the Wormadam when Pikachu tells me to go back to the guy who lost his pen. He says it was lost the previous night, and that gives Pikachu an idea--that Burmy's cloak will hold the missing pen. We talk to the two Plant Cloak Burmy. Pikachu asks to investigate their cloaks, and they say no, but luckily the soccer-playing kid takes care of that for us. The pen comes out of the cloaks when they fall apart. Now we have the mystery of how it became a Trash Cloak Burmy, and we have all the answers. The cloak broke, and it remade it with trash. Pikachu thinks the necklace is in there. We prove it to the Wormadam. And the necklace is in there! We return it to the little girl, and the older girl seems impressed. Pikachu is a shipper on deck. Ah, so Tim's father is a detective named Harry Goodman, and Pikachu was his partner. They worked at the Baker Detective Agency. Tim remembers his dad having a Pikachu, but remembers him being cuter and more docile. We meet Mike Baker, the head of the Detective Agency, as well as the receptionist, Amanda. Pikachu apparently has a tendency to eat all the sweets in the office. According to Baker, Harry had an accident while investigating a Pokmon, and only Pikachu was found at the scene. Tim says he'll investigate, but Baker says it's too dangerous and urges him not to. Oh, Tim's older than he looks, probably; he's heading to Ryme University in the fall. Then again he looks like he could be as old as I was when I went off to college. Pikachu had mentioned having lost his memories, and Baker mentions Pikachu was collapsed at the scene. I swear, if this turns out to be some Mystery Dungeon shit and Pikachu is Harry... Baker mentions a reliable inspector, Holiday. Tim says he feels like he's being watched, and Pikachu says it's probably Baker's partner, who's always hiding. There's another Pika-signal, but it seems to just be for comic relief, as he says he already has a nice hat when Amanda's Fletchling lands on his head. And the title card for Chapter 2 as I leave the office. Actually, that's a good place to stop for the night, I guess.
---

Bump
---

Kind of busy lately
---

Another for good measure
---

The save file screen mentions a "Litwick Cave". We go to Harry's apartment, which was also Pikachu's. He hasn't been there in two months. They start searching it for clues, and Tim mentions what Baker said about Harry investigating Pokmon incidents. Pikachu suggests searching for notes on what he was looking into. The first thing we find are receipts, keeping track of his expenses. Which seem to include a lot of food-related items. Pikachu's sweet tooth, probably. Finally, Pikachu finds something. Maybe. Also he demands a cup of coffee. There's a locked cabinet, which at least gets us searching for a key. It's frustrating trying to do "point and click" with the area under investigation entirely on the top screen and no visible cursor when not highlighting an item. Once we've pressed, er, searched everything, we get a prompt to think of where he might find it. Tim says he'd often hide valuables in food containers. We get to go more in-depth now, and find it taped to the bottom of a jar of jellybeans. In the cabinet, we find the notes we need, which includes a map of Ryme City. Pikachu identifies one of the marks as being a place where an incident happened after Harry's disappearance, though, so it seems he noticed enough of a pattern to predict one before it happened. The remaining three marks are for a warehouse, a lake, and Litwick Cave. Sure enough, they decide to check the cave first. A Drifloon is running away, and human voices are saying they need to run, but one says she can't because she hurt her leg. A Glalie with red eyes is menacing two women. Tim tells Pikachu to use Thunderbolt, and he reveals he can't use moves ever since the accident. A few quick-time events later, a loose rock in the cave ceiling has knocked Glalie out and it's been sent rolling away--but not before it collapses the entrance with what appeared to be, I don't know, Dark Pulse? The two women are introduced as Meiko Okamoto, director of the TV station GNN, and rookie assistant director Emilia Christie, who recognizes them from the previous day--the one that Pikachu thinks Tim was trying to impress. It's dark near the entrance, so we have to wake up the Litwick to explore there. Interviewing Meiko, it seems this wasn't the first time a Pokmon went berserk during a shoot. Looking up, we find that the sky is open; a sufficiently large Flying-type could help us escape. We talk to the ladies about the Pokmon in this cave, but Meiko can't remember anything besides Litwick, and they can't consult their footage because the battery is dead and Emilia's bag with the spare is gone. It should be near the sign near the entrance. We move some rubble to uncover it. All that the footage shows are the Glalie and Drifloon...wait, there's briefly signs of the latter's evolved form, Drifblim! That's what we need now. The Litwick that would light up the way to go deeper into the cave is finally ready to wake up now. We also find Glalie, and it's calmed down and has no memory of its rampage. It was watching the two women filming, and then something fell down from above. It's also very tired and needs water. There's a blue stone, and the Drifloon that was frozen solid. We can't get close enough to the next Litwick to wake them up, though, so we're stuck rescuing Drifloon. I take it to the two Litwick, and they thaw it out. It helps us. The yellow eyes in the darkness turn out to be Noibat. Each of the three Noibat says Drifblim is down their tunnel, and they'll let us pass if Tim gives them his candy. We can't check all three, so we need to figure out which one's telling the truth. We talk to the final Litwick, finding a barrier in the form of a river, and learn that Noibat head out to find food in the mornings. Drifloon says it lives in the hole next to the one the Litwick use. Another Litwick says the tunnel feels safe because the Noibat are always guarding them.
---

Another Litwick says that they dislike the cold, so they congregate at the far-left hole. And all three Noibat say that there's a different Pokmon in each hole, so I guess it's in the one on the right! Pikachu heads in to talk to it. It says the wind is too weak for it to lift that many people. Pikachu says he feels a slight breeze and wonders where it's coming from. Oh, right, Glalie needed water, and here's a river. It says it wants to help out, and it's good at Ice Beam. That was Ice Beam? Maybe if it was a Shadow Pokmon, sure. The girls say there could be hidden passages deeper in the cave, and it seems like it is coming from beyond the river. I know exactly how we'll cross, but apparently we have to talk to Emilia, Meiko, and Drifblim again. Doing so unlocks a Pikaprompt, and a bit later, another one lets us suggest freezing the river. There's another big boulder blocking a hole. I suggest making a tool to break it, and Pikachu says we could probably make a pickax with what we've got in here. We get the signpost from the broken sign, the sharp stone, and Emilia's belt to attach the two. Tim breaks it open, but laments not getting any clues about his father. Pikachu points out that they did discover an incident. They leave the cave on Drifblim. The next day, Pikachu invites Tim to the Hi-Hat Cafe, owned by one Pablo Millan and waitressed by a Ludicolo. According to Pikachu, it has the best coffee. Hearing him rave about the coffee, Tim is reminded of his father. The Cafe is on the first floor of the building that the detective agency is in. Pablo was once a musician--a pianist. As Tim and Pikachu are leaving the cafe, however, Mr. Baker comes in, and mentions that there are more incidents, so be careful. Then, once they've left, he muses to Pablo how Pikachu never drank coffee before the accident. I think I'm sticking with the "Harry somehow became Pikachu" theory.
---

Heading home today; not sure if I'll be able to update once I'm there.

Edit: But now that it's looking like I'm not going back to sleep, I need something to fill the tine between breakfast and lunch (checkout is noon, so I'll probably have lunch at like 11). Expect an update in a bit over an hour.
---

Pikachu says that as he expected, there was an incident at the cave. Tim says they found no clues, but Pikachu brings something out. They say it looks like a broken vial, and there was something like that in Harry's notes. Pikachu asks Tim to mark the location of Harry's accident on the map. He's bothered by the fact that it wasn't even close to any of the marked locations. But there's an arrow pointing off the map of Ryme City, so Pikachu thinks it was on the way back from there.

Chapter 3. PCL. Damn, I was that close to the end of Chapter 2 when I decided to call it quits last time? Baker is giving Tim a key...oh, he's borrowing the company car. He's got a part-time job as a lab assistant...probably to investigate. So I guess Tim's older than he looks. Apparently official sources say that he's going to be aged up from 18 to 21 in the movie? He doesn't look 18 here. Then again, I've noticed that there's a definite tendency for people to have trouble judging the ages of those younger than themselves. To me, high school students generally still look like children, and in situations where I'm in the presence of both high schoolers and older adults, the high schoolers never mistake me for one of their own but anyone above the age of 50 invariably mistakes me for a high schooler. But back to the game, Tim says he's more of an errand boy than an assistant, and that PCL is the lab. A well-known Pokmon research facility. I ask Baker some questions before leaving. Harry didn't mention PCL at all, and Baker says that Pikachu acted like a normal Pikachu when Harry was around. More evidence that this "accident" somehow transferred Harry's consciousness into the body of his Pikachu! I'm really hoping this isn't actually the case because after the twists and turns of ZTD, something this obvious is kind of lame. Amanda also mentions that Pikachu's behavior has changed.

Tim encounters another Pikachu and mistakes him for the Detective. Once the Detective comes by to talk to him, there's an implication that he's actually Ash's. Ryme City police inspector Frank Holiday enters the detective agency. We heard his name mentioned. When he learns Tim's here, he says he hopes Tim's not looking for his father. Baker says that's exactly why he's here. They're worried about the danger. PCL stands for Pokmon Comprehensive Laboratory. Tim's using the last name "Ottman" here, just in case someone here was involved with Harry's disappearance. The company car is a red convertible. Amanda's choice. The receptionist is Rita Partridge, and her partner is Floette. Pikachu flirts with her. We find a map of the facility. I search everything that can be searched, talk to everyone that can be spoken to, and eventually realize I have to sit on the couch to progress. I miss the director's full name, though she soon introduces herself as Dorothy, but turn back to the game in time to catch the name of the accompanying researcher, Frank Hartfield. Dorothy introduces him as "Fridge". He speaks in a stereotypical surfer dude accent, and his beard is a darker color than the hair on top of his head. I suspect the former is natural, as the lighter hair "goes better" with the surfer dude thing. I mean, my hair and beard don't exactly match, either, but it's more like that the former is fairly uniform and the latter isn't. I used to have a lot more blonde in my hair when I was younger but it turned a more uniform brown eventually, but my beard--and eyebrows--still have both colors. I don't know why; it's weird. Fridge is a hugger. He says that the guy before Tim quit suddenly, and Dorothy says he was doing so well, too. We follow Fridge to his lab. His partner is a Garbodor, and he's researching its ecology in assisting garbage disposal. He demonstrates by tossing it some garbage, and it emits gas, eliciting a scolding from another researcher, Nina. She says they can't even go to the courtyard for some fresh air, and Fridge asks if Wallace is up to his old antics again, which Nina confirms.
---

She then says that the pass code's been changed, and even she's stumped by his latest high jinks [sic]. Looking around, I find a vial that proves unrelated, and a machine that they use to purify Garbodor's emissions, as well as to study its composition. Apparently, Wallace does this whenever there's a newcomer to the lab, because a newbie once came in and messed up his work. Nina is developing medicines using Shuckle's ability, but she can't get any work done because both Shuckle and the berries are in the Courtyard. Ah, so Wallace will do this to test newbies. He'll write a problem on the whiteboard in the meeting room, and the answer is the passcode. Nina says she can't make heads or tails of it, but given what this game has had so far, it'll probably be extremely easy. I mean, 999's Sudoku was easy enough for me to actually solve in the amount of time that passed in-game, and that game's a lot harder than this one was. Pikachu's got something to say, but it's just a reminder to look for the vial while we're here. I enter what I assumed was the meeting room, but immediately Pikachu starts sneezing and complaining about the cold. 59 degrees. It seems to be a resource center. First it has info on Pikachu, Garbodor, and Floette, but then it goes on to have info on Fennekin, Rotom, Trevenant, and Shuckle. We know we'll be meeting Shuckle soon, so the others will probably be here, too. Finally, I find Dorothy's research and get that full name. Her last name's Fisher. There's research on Relicanth and Whiscash, as well as Zorua's Illusion ability. The next two doors are the locked courtyard and the director's office, also locked, so only one place to go. Here's the meeting room. We take notes on his problem, and there's a hint that says "Check the plants!" Hm, upon checking the puzzle, it seems that the resource center has already answered our problem, but we haven't officially gotten the necessary hints (even though profiles of Fennekin et. al. are already in the Case List) so we can't progress. The coffee is apparently very bad, and beakers are being used as mugs. I head back to the lobby to check plants, but find nothing. Nor in Fridge's lab...ah, there we go, there's one in the resource center. I guess that's to ensure people do come in there. Ah, there are symbols corresponding to each Pokmon, so this was a necessary hint to find, after all. Now we're allowed to input the Pokmon on the chart. Triangle, Star, Diamond, Square. The door opens. Rotom is absent, but Trevenant, Fennekin, and Shuckle are all here, as is Phantump. Pikachu says he's been having dreams about the accident, and was sure that vial played a part somehow. One tree has no berries, but the others do, and Trevenant says Nina has something like the vial. Onward to Building B, we meet Klefki. Klefki has all of the keys in this place, so we have to get juice from Shuckle to give to it for it to let us into the storeroom. It also mentions having the key to the Director's Office. It says the only room it can't open is the Courtyard, because that takes a passcode instead of a key. Nina's in the courtyard now, and Shuckle's shell is all full of berries for the experiment, so it can't make juice right now. But we can investigate her desk now. It's another dead end. Fridge suggests we go to Building B and meet Wallace and Carlos. We find ourselves in Carlos's lab, and Rotom comes out of a motor. Carlos walks in, last name Hernando. He and Rotom are working on making a better motor. He says that the motor should work in theory, but doesn't...or rather, Rotom won't listen to him. Rotom says that Carlos is its servant. We find a battery in a trashcan. Carlos says he's usually on the same wavelength as Ghost-types, but because Rotom's also an Electric-type, he's having trouble with it, so he was studying up on it. There's another vial that's the wrong shape, but nothing more to do in there, so we head to Wallace's lab. Wallace's last name is Carroll, and he commends us on figuring out the passcode...sort of. He's really haughty.
---

He's researching Pokmon cells, so he wants Pikachu to help him with something...and then jokes about putting it in a tank for about a month. Oh, there are Solosis and Duosion in the tanks. Pokmon literally based on cells. They're unresponsive, though. He has an atomizer for his plants, and he has a vial but it's the wrong shape, too. He's doing research on telepathy, and there's a paper scrap in the wastebasket. Wallace has never received telepathy, though; it seems it doesn't work for humans. Also, the name "Ottman" was apparently in the newspaper recently. Now that we've spoken to everyone, Pikachu wants us to name a suspect. I feel like it would be too easy if it were the obvious asshole, but "latent form of telepathy" seems like as good an idea as any as to why Tim can communicate with Pikachu. Then again, Carlos is a Ghost-type specialist, so if Harry's outright dead and possessing his Pikachu...I'm going with Wallace. Pikachu agrees with my assessment and suggests we head to the courtyard for the conclusion of Nina's experiment. There's a strange chill as we approach. She's having trouble making it work; it needs to be a certain shade of orange. We offer to help. We need two berries and a liquid; we get a report on the latter. Based on what it says, I think culture solution is the most likely, followed by water. I head to Fridge's lab again looking for it, and find yet another vial that's not right. Ah, the trash I collected can be used for Fridge's experiments. I try the paper scrap first, then the battery. The former let out the usual purple gas, which Fridge says was purified, but the latter let out a green gas, which wasn't purified at all. No idea what any of that was for, and the only liquid I got was grass juice. I head to the meeting room to get the coffee, just in case that's needed, then grab the water from the water tank. Maybe Wallace has the culture solution? We can talk to the Duosion and Solosis now. They confirm that Wallace can't get the telepathy. No culture solution, though. I try Carlos's lab, but it doesn't have anything even close to a liquid. Nothing in the resource center, though the temperature says it's now 68 degrees. How considerate of them to work in multiples of five degrees Celsius so they're still whole numbers in Fahrenheit. Not like that "98.6" bullcrap that's based on an exact conversion of a rounded-off number (IIRC the average human body temperature is closer to an even 99 degrees Fahrenheit, which would come out to about 37.2 Celsius. It got rounded off to 37, and then that got converted literally to 98.6. This is why you should always pay attention to your significant figures.) I'm at a loss for where the culture solution is, so I just pray that water is actually the correct answer and try to run it. ...No good. And based on Pikachu's reason for rejecting it, grass juice and coffee are out, too. Ah, we needed to actually talk to Wallace to get the culture solution from Solosis's tank. And success. Dorothy's back, and she's got a guest--Emilia, from GNN. Of course. Hopefully she doesn't blow our cover. Seems like she almost did; I had to step away midway through the cutscene. So now we have access to Dorothy's office and the storeroom. Dorothy's partner is Minccino, and it has an empty can for Fridge's experiment. The can elicits an orange gas, which wasn't purified much. And finally, I take the juice to Klefki. Another wrong vial, but then, the right one, with ominous music. Someone seemed to be coming in, but they shut the door...and then it cuts to the cafe. See, I knew that I was right to head to Dorothy's office first, because the important stuff was in the storeroom. Tim is able to quote Pikachu's lectures on coffee--I initially assumed it was something Harry said, but unless Tim already suspects what I suspect, he's not indicating that to be the case. Cut to an ominous phone conversation; someone knows that Harry's son is in the facility. The next day is the TV shoot, and Carlos wants Tim to come to the courtyard.
---

Dorothy's worried that Wallace will say something strange, and Carlos is worried because he has nothing to talk about and Rotom isn't listening to him. Wallace says he'd rather be talking about something other than his research on cells, and Nina mentions that she's afraid of Wallace, but Fennekin helps her feel strong. Finally, it's time to start the shoot. Tim's feeding the Trevenant, and then suddenly it goes berserk the moment he and Emilia turn their backs. Pikachu's lack of running speed compared to Tim isn't restricted to gameplay, as he barely gets out of the courtyard in time for the door to shut. Wallace wants Tim fired immediately. The reporters try to stick up for him, but Wallace wants evidence. Luckily, Meiko hd the camera running. I saw something above Trevenant's head, but can't make it out. It does't appear to be there when we rewatch it, though, so maybe I was just seeing things. They instead key in on a black shadow near the leftover food on the video. They want to investigate what it could be. According to Fennekin, it said "I was here first". We also find out that Nina is keeping a record of mysterious events, and Dorothy says it's in her office. Trevenant has amnesia, same as Glalie did. Phantump says it's felt a strange presence before, and that this was the same so it's the same Pokmon, but it's never seen it. Shuckle has seen it show up from time to time to eat everyone's food, but doesn't know its name.We go to the lobby to see if Rita saw anything, but no good--though we learn of surveillance cameras that have been running since the facility was built. Or rather, since the new facility was built. It had to be rebuilt 10 years ago, reportedly because something went berserk and destroyed most of the building during an experiment. Report on that is in the library, second shelf. The ghost story report also just details a food theft. Pokemon in the picture of the founders are Herdier, Gengar, Mudkip, and Aipom. Perfect! The only thought I had was that the presence reminded me of the Ghosts in Gen I before you get the Silph Scope. Even when you can see them clearly, the Gastly line still looks the most like them. It was two years before they rebuilt it. Hm, and it says in the research materials that a room with Gengar in it is about 10 degrees colder. That confirms it, but for whatever reason, I still can't input in the case notes. Fridge gives us "Ghost story" number 2, which tells of a sudden chill making the temperature drop nearly 10 degrees. He pointed us in Wallace's direction, though, so that's where we'll go. Klefki also says it's seen it, and it looks like a black shadow and laughed at Klefki when it tries to chase it off. Wallace is of no help. Rotom is incensed that another Pokmon is mysterious, as it's enough mystery for one laboratory. The third ghost story is obtained from Carlos, and it says the clock in the director's office started spinning really fast, but when they left to get someone else to show them, it had returned to normal. I'm out of ideas...oh, okay, I hadn't talked to Minccino yet, and it confirms that the clock incident was Rotom's doing. Maybe that's the hint we needed--it confirms that Ghost-types are responsible for these things. Nope, still nothing. The library's 59 degrees again. Garbodor's of no help, so I think I'm at a loss, unless there's physical evidence to pick up. Oh, wait, the Solosis and Duosion! Solosis confirms that Duosion talks to a Pokmon that stops by from time to time, and Duosion says there's a Pokmon Wallace hasn't noticed--and that Wallace starts shivering when that Pokmon drops by because the room gets cold. This should be enough! But it isn't...until we head back into the courtyard and get Pika-prompted. Now we can solve it. And we go to the library to confront it. It attacks Pikachu and escapes when Tim saves him. Dorothy says there's Ghost-type-catching equipment in the storeroom, so it's off to retrieve that.
---

The mysterious thingimajig. We use it to catch it in the meeting room. But Pikachu thinks it's a human that's behind this. Carlos, probably; he's the Ghost-type specialist. Gengar confirms it's a human in a white coat, and mentions a secret device in the library. Yellow, blue, green, and red books. Pull them in that order. Pikachu suggests telling the others that the mystery has been solved so they'll let their guard down, but I head straight for the library. It's a secret passage! It leads to an underground laboratory. John Waals, whose name we found among the founders, has a report. He was researching medicine, too. He built the underground lab to have a more stable environment, but Simon misunderstood his instructions and left a batch of his medicine to mature for a week, causing the opposite effect of what was intended, and the medicine won't stabilize because the cells Waals received were not from "that Pokmon", but were from-- And then it's smudged out. We also find a vial of the right type in a machine. February of last year, the new researchers discovered this room and connected it to the closing and the berserk Pokmon. This is where "R", a substance that temporarily strengthens Pokmon, was developed. It has severe side effects and is not viable in its current form, but the researcher who found it is going to continue studying it in secret. A mysterious person contacted the researcher, asking if they had a substance that could make Pokmon go berserk without the cause being determined. They've offered quite a large amount of capital, enough to continue this research, and the efficacy of the substance meets their request. Gengar was already in the room, the partner of one of the old members. It's been living here since the building closed down. It can't be seen by the security cameras, so it can enter and exit freely. The secret research is detracting from the non-secret research, so the researcher is planning to move the equipment somewhere else. And the last date is recent, after Tim and Pikachu arrived. The researcher has analyzed the equipment and can move the "R" production equipment and conduct their research as they wish. Pikachu has figured it out. We know the person was in the basement when we arrived at PCL, but that doesn't actually rule out many people, and we need to prove they were here when we arrived. I head to the meeting room to check if Gengar can help, but it's got nothing new. Meiko and Emilia are there, but they've got nothing for us, either. I tell everyone that the incident was solved...oh, the cameras! They can help. First, Dorothy shows up, followed by Nina and Fridge. Wallace comes in, heads into the library, but immediately leaves. Likely he was just there to hide the passcode chart, and he heads to the meeting room next before heading to the courtyard. Then Carlos goes into the library, just before Dorothy and Fridge come out to greet us. It's time to reveal the culprit. Tim accuses Carlos, shows the leftovers of Trevenant's meal spiked with "R". And the tape shows that he had gone into the library at the time that the research was going on. And Carlos says he did it because he knew that Tim was Harry Goodman's son, which meant he was in Carlos's way. Harry knew too much, so Carlos had someone tamper with his car as a warning, but he never expected Harry to go missing in an accident. Inspector Holiday says that he's just glad Tim's safe, and it would've been easier for Tim to stand by if they'd done more. Baker figured as much, and says that no good can come of it if he's harmed. There's no point in telling Tim to stop, so Baker just wants him to be honest and come to him for help rather than running around in secret. Tim and Pikachu collect their thoughts at the apartment, then head to the site of Harry's accident. The camera pans up to the full moon, and Mewtwo is floating in front of it. It flies off. Hmmm... experiments with cells...that make Pokmon go berserk... I think Mewtwo was the source of the cells for "R".
---

up
---

Huh, thought it was yesterday I'd bumped this.
---

Looks like just a regular bump. I was hoping to do one earlier but I didn't.
---

Before continuing with gameplay, I want to address one thing. Throughout this playthrough, I've been critical of this game because I was told that it was geared to long-time fans of the franchise, which is to say, the older ones, and it feels more like "babby's first VN". And, okay, yeah, that's still true...but it's designed for veteran Pokmon fans, not necessarily veteran VN fans. I mean, I'll admit that I had vaguely been spoiled as to Mewtwo's presence in this game, but even if I hadn't, the association between Mewtwo and this mysterious substance known as "R" would be there for anyone who's been playing since the beginning--but only them, as the Berserk Gene was only ever in Generation II. (For those who don't remember, it was a held item that would automatically be consumed upon entering the battle and had the same effect as being hit with the move Swagger. At the time, it was a questionable pick for a held item due to the risk of hurting yourself in confusion, maybe useful for a low-attack physical tank like Steelix but probably not even there; after the addition of Abilities in Gen III, it probably could've been a solid pick for a Pokmon with Own Tempo, though this is mitigated by the fact that most Pokmon with Own Tempo as one of their abilities would rather have one of their other abilities.)

And to a younger player, that association wouldn't be there. I haven't played the Let's Go games, I know they're Gen I remakes, so maybe by now the "kiddies" know that Mewtwo was originally set up as villainous, but the last time it was in a movie it was purely heroic.

Chapter 4. Cappucci Island. Tim and Pikachu waited a few days to hear from Inspector Holiday after Carlos's arrest. They're back in the park, feeding the birds. Amanda's Fletchling shows up with a note, saying Baker has something to speak to them about. Inspector Holiday's there, and he feeds a donut to Baker's Accelgor. They learned that Carlos was taking orders from someone else in order to get his funding for research into R. The same person was responsible for Harry's accident. Carlos says Harry was being attacked by that person, likely because he knew too much. Carlos never met the person, though, only speaking by phone and delivering the R via proxies. Carlos said he couldn't figure out which Pokmon's cells are part of the base for R. The police are doing their own investigation based on Dr. Waals's research. Talking to Baker adds little more other than reaffirming the connection between the incidents, R, and the accident. Pikachu gives a prompt and suggests we talk to the developer of R to learn more, that being Dr. Waals. Tim suggests it to Holiday, and he says he was thinking the same thing and directs him to Cappucci Island, where Waals is living. He also mentions that one of his men, Brad McMaster, is on the island for another assignment and can help Tim out if he needs it. He's ready to rush off, but Holiday says there's only one ferry per day. Baker cuts in, and Pikachu is met with a sense of dread. He says he knows someone who can help them, and calls Amanda in. She says she's licensed to drive a boat, Pikachu groaning throughout it all. Asking Amanda about boat driving reveals that she sometimes goes on rides because she enjoys the feeling of speed, and Pikachu says he thinks his bad hunch was correct. Oh, come on, we've been through worse in this topic. We go to the cafe to wait. Pikachu wishes it were anyone but Amanda. Ludicolo seems happier than usual today, and mentions a Pokmon Carnival. Pablo says it's the biggest festival in Ryme City. He and Ludicolo always go. There's a parade at the end that's the highlight. They take off, and it's way too fast for both Tim and Pikachu, especially the latter. He's still nauseous when they arrive on solid ground. Then he's lured off by a real estate developer named Louise Milligan, whose partner is a Spritzee. The Spritzee's perfume seems to be what lured him in.
---

Louise says Waals's home is right down the path they're on. Spritzee says she doesn't like him. We also meet a delivery/transport service, Timburr Transport. Another islander mentions a heavy fog that's been rolling in lately, and also that the Azumarill she's with was found injured, likely one of the ones that lives at the lake. The first house has a triangle mark flag, and the second, an X. That house's occupant mentions that Waals used to take walks by the lake, but hasn't since the fog started coming in. There's an injured Ducklett in the path. An aspiring Pokmon Ranger named Milo Green shows up and heals it with a potion. When Tim mentions Waals, Milo asks if he's with "those other guys", but doesn't elaborate when he confirms he doesn't know what Milo's talking about. Third house has a square...this seems more like something I'd expect from a multi-platform game; it's the exact same symbols as a Playstation controller. Ducklett says it was injured at the lake, but couldn't see what did it because of the fog. Waals is the one who's been training Milo. A lot of the other islanders dislike him, but Milo thinks he's a good guy. There's a Manectric at the entrance to Dr. Waals's home, which makes Milo think he has a guest. McMaster shows up and is trying to apprehend Waals, saying he has reliable testimony that Waals was seen at the lake and that that, along with his previous record, means he's got to be the culprit. Tim tries to step in, and is dismissed as an "amateur", though when he identifies himself as a detective, McMaster says that that changes things, only to immediately say exactly the same thing. Tim gets information on the fog incident--it rolled in about a week ago, and Pokmon have been fleeing the lake ever since. He also says that Waals has been experimenting on the Pokmon from the lake--earning another objection from Milo--and that the bridge to the lake is broken. Waals says he goes to the lake for Potion ingredients, but people only believe what they want to believe, so there's no convincing Brad. Milo seems to know another way to the lake, but he doesn't want to say anything with Brad around. Nothing else to investigate in there, so we leave. Manectric is Brad's partner and has the same attitude as he does. Brad's men admit that he can be a bit stubborn, but they know he means well. There seem to be some glowing eyes out in the fog. Everyone says that the fog needs to be lifted for them to repair the bridge. Also, Waals's house had the circle. We start back to town, and Milo stops us. He tells us of a secret path, and says that people always took something when they went through it. An older villager vaguely remembers something about that, but can't remember what. Ducklett and Tropius are of no help. Timburr mentions that the fog hides smells, too. The old villager also mentions the thing with the eyes. The construction guy knows, though. There was a festival by the lake, and everyone got scrolls. This was before the bridge was built. He directs us back to the old man. He gives us the scroll. There's a full moon backed by green, a half moon backed by red, and a new moon backed by blue. The old man says that the "two scales" will show the way. The monument in town that we saw earlier has scales, but there are three of them. There's a broken statue near Waals's house, though, and it seems like it might be the right one. Milo asks to join us.

If thou wisheth to reach the lake, follow the light of the moon and face the three challenges.

The night of the full moon is beginning. Pass through the shadow of darkness, and when thou witnesseth the split moon, the lake shall bestow its blessings.

Okay, so it sounds like the order is full moon, new moon, half moon.

There's a statue of a Tropius, it looks really realistic. They comment on the green leaves. Stepping forwards, there's an injured Feebas, who Milo recognizes. It says it was swimming in the lake when something suddenly threw it.
---

The next statue is busted up, but it looks like it was once blue. And the third one is a Stunfisk, but that's brown. It's time to solve it. We go down the path by the Tropius statue first, and run into some Stunfisk. Once we've dodged them, the next three statues have lost their color, but they're Ducklett, Wingull, and Timburr. The next one we're supposed to do is blue...I guess that's Ducklett? Wingull is "blue", too, but I guess it's considered primarily white. I start down the path and am told to solve the puzzle first. Yeah, they even have the weird tan for Timburr's primary color. Ducklett's path is the one that has the eyes, anyway. There are West Sea Shellos here, as well as a Grotle. And the three statues are Grotle, Azumarill...and East Sea Shellos. Grotle tells us that the water quality has changed over time. It's been living here since before the humans arrived. When examining the Shellos statue, Pikachu suggests we talk to Milo. Talking to him about the lake reveals that when he was young, he was saved by a Pokmon, and shows a beautiful scale as proof. A Prism Scale, I believe, which means he was saved by a Milotic. ...Really, game? He says that Shellos's color changes based on where they live or on the water quality, so what Grotle told us explains why the color changed. I go into the Case Notes to confirm it, and upon solving this one, we arrive at Lake Cappucci. A pair of Poliwag comes bouncing in. There are a couple of Masquerain flying in, and Tim thinks they're causing the fog. Pikachu asks them to stop, and they say no. They're worried about something...outsiders. Feebas convinces them to stop. Hm, the glowing eyes did look like Masquerain's wing patterns, but...why would they show so brightly? Though the movement pattern does support it being their wings. Ah, but it's a "scary Pokmon living in the lake" that they were trying to hide from with that fog. Masquerain says the Pokmon moved in the other day. Feebas remembers its body being clamped by a pincer. There's a chunk of wood...and a tree with a piece missing. Masquerain says the scary Pokmon did that. Something's in the water. Feebas volunteers to investigate, and gets hit by a Crawdaunt. Poliwag confirms that Crawdaunt is very strong, and they're worried about being kicked out. We also find a broken fishing rod. Crawdaunt aren't native to this island, but Milo says they can live anywhere. Masquerain says it has a temper; they tried to scare it off but it still attacked. Milo adds that they're territorial. There's a broken, empty bottle. We can't leave the area yet, even though we've talked to everyone, so we must be able to solve the next mystery. The first answer is "territorial", but the next question is "how did it get here?" And we need to provide two clues, out of three that we have--claw mark, broken fishing rod, broken bottle. All three combos fail, so we need something else. Ah, here we go. A wooden box fragment. It's not the box and the rod, so maybe the box and the bottle? Nope, it's the box and the tree. Oh, the claw marks are on the inside of the box! So Crawdaunt was brought to the lake in the box. We return to Waals's home to report our findings, and Brad accuses us of jumping to conclusions for saying that this exonerates Waals. I expected as much. As we leave the house, the Timburr company is moving wood, likely to rebuild the bridge, but it also has the square flag. Ah, those marked flags are signs for Timburr to know where to bring the lumber. Just let them know once which flag they're bringing things to, and they'll transport it there every time after that. Tim thinks maybe the culprit used the flag system to trick the Timburr into transporting Crawdaunt to the lake. The chief says there's no special mark for the lake, though--the bulletin board in town has a full list of the symbols they use. Talking to Louise, she talked to Waals a few times about parting with his property for her planned resort... She has motive!
---

Bump
---

Didn't bring the 3DS with me this time.
---

Possibly later today?
---

Well, today is a sick day, so absolutely no reason not to play.
---

A villager says he's never heard if Crawdaunt, but it sounds dangerous so he'll stay away. Brad is busy "gathering testimony" from Amanda, Pikachu accusing him of just flirting because she has nothing to do with this case. When asked about Crawdaunt, he again focuses on Waals, saying he must have done it for revenge on Pokmon and humanity in general. Tim says he has no evidence, but he says the truth will be revealed soon enough. I mean, I know that it's probably Louise, as she has motive for wanting Waals gone, but I really want it to be Brad.Talking with Amanda reveals further evidence that Brad has a crush on her. Amanda says he's "friendly and funny", which both Tim and Pikachu are incredulous of. Finally, I make my way back to the board. We get confirmation that no mark exists for the lake, and see a recruitment ad for Timburr Transport. Though they seem to be advertising it more like a gym than a construction company. And we get collection records. 2 Triangle, 1 Square, 3 X, 1 Circle. We decide to go talk to the villagers about their package deliveries last week. The woman in Triangle House did indeed receive 2, and while nothing seemed strange about the delivery itself, she did notice the Timburr were carrying a big wooden box that day. It was confirmed large enough to hold Crawdaunt and was delivered south, in the direction of the bridge. We automatically update the Case Notes. The old man of X House did receive three deliveries--a camera, a tripod, and "whatnot". He says he wants to take pictures of the island's natural beauty before the resort goes up. It's a tourist resort to show off the nature. He's not thrilled about the resort project, either. The man in Square House got one package, a record player, but it was broken on arrival and couldn't be fixed. Louise was there, too, saying he'd need to order replacement parts. Ah, she was helping the chief put stickers on all the boxes! If there was an unrecorded symbol, she could have put it on. Before I can check if Dr. Waals got a lone package, though, we get pulled into a cutscene with Brad telling Louise that Waals is behind this. Brad says that Tim's continued investigation will be of no use, but Louise actually seems to encourage Tim. Odd...is she just confident that Tim won't be able to find enough evidence to convince Brad that his preconceptions were wrong? Or is she legitimately not the culprit? I feel like it's got to be the former; the evidence is all piling up for Louise, while the only evidence towards anyone else is circumstantial (Brad's refusal to consider another suspect besides Waals making him suspicious himself). But Spritzee's scent irritates Manectric's nose, making it sneeze. That's probably going to be important--the same thing will happen at the lake even without Louise present, proving she was there before.

Spritzee seems offended that Manectric didn't like its scent, and Louise says there's no way that the Timburr could've done it, because the chief checks every box himself; Louise was even helping him that day and saw nothing odd. She's surprised that Waals could be the culprit, but admits that she'd heard about his checkered past. Brad takes the Timburr lead as a possibility, but uses it as further evidence to Waals's guilt, and when told that he shouldn't be telling everyone Waals is the culprit without proof, he says it's a police officer's job to remove any doubts from the public. Waals suggests that he was convicted by the media at PCL, too. But he says he wasn't expecting any packages and didn't receive any! So that 1 package to Circle House is suspicious. Milo mentions Louise seeming to be in a good move when she was helping out by the docks, and that he was surprised since she'd been in a foul mood since Waals refused to sell his property. We get a goofy Pikachu interlude, with Pikachu attempting to make Manectric fetch a Frisbee and instead having to fetch his hat.
---

I head to the docks, but the chief isn't there. Must still be by the bridge. Yeah, the bridge is repaired and Brad has already crossed. Manectric's still standing guard at Waals's house, though, so my idea for sneezing evidence might not work. He says he wishes he could ask the Timburr about things, and also confirms again that Louise helped him with the sorting process. Oh, but he says she didn't have her usual scent! Heh, I guess she didn't want to risk it getting on Crawdaunt's box. Or maybe Crawdaunt is sensitive to it just like Manectric. Wait, she had it at first, but he left something at the office, and when he got back, she didn't have it anymore? That doesn't make sense... I start across the bridge, and Pikachu reminds me that we need to interview the Timburr. The first one we speak to says there was no package for Waals. He gets defensive when accused of making a mistake, but mentions that they carried a box with a donut-like mark on it. Ah, that's perfect! It'd be easy enough to color it in afterwards to make it look like it was a solid circle, which is Waals's mark. The other one says something similar. We head to the lake, and Feebas is there, searching for Milo. And then Feebas finds a "strange thing", which turns out to be a piece of wood...with part of a donut mark on it! Maybe. Fletchling's here too, and it mistook Feebas for a dirty rag, but gave it medicinal herbs to apologize for poking it. A cutscene where Brad says he finally has conclusive evidence--the symbol for Waals's home, pulled from the lake. But we can look at all the evidence, and there seem to be a lot more pieces of wood with white paint on it. The yellow circle was the inner portion of the donut! There's also a dirty plate and a soccer ball, and more of the box that Crawdaunt was in. I go to the case notes, am not allowed to do anything, and then am immediately told to look at the case notes. And then still can't do anything. Oh, I have to investigate the evidence again to do it. We create the donut mark with the four pieces of wood and the yellow sticker, and now we just need to find the flag. And now we slowly follow the Timburr back to the lake. Ah, we wouldn't have been able to get there in our own investigation because it's in the area that Crawdaunt was blocking. Milo tries to challenge Crawdaunt, but cowers, and Feebas jumps up and takes the blow for him. Then it evolves into Milotic and defeats Crawdaunt. And the flag is found. Pikachu smells something; it's Spritzee's scent, it's on the flag! We head back, and sure enough, Manectric sneezes after sniffing the flag. That's all we need to be allowed to accuse Louise. Brad, of course, is resistant to any idea that it could be anyone but Waals, and Louise finally reacts the way I'd expect her to. Tim recreates the ring mark. And he says that the time when the chief went to his office was time enough, because all she had to do was signal to Spritzee. Spritzee was the one who actually carried the flag, which is why its scent has soaked into it and it makes Manectric sneeze. Brad says he has a headache at the idea that Waals isn't the culprit, but then asks for motive. And Tim gives it--she needed to frame Waals so she could get the land for her resort. She doesn't deny it. Milo gets mad, but Waals calms him down, and Brad, finally convinced of Louise's guilt, takes her away. Tim asks Waals about R, and he says another man asked him about that two months ago, and that he, too, had a Pikachu with him. Tim surmises it was his father. He says he turned Harry away without telling him anything, that R was originally supposed to be a miracle drug made from a certain Pokmon's cells...ah, of course. Not Mewtwo; Mew. But the ones they used were indeed Mewtwo's! Hence why it did what it did. He mentions the Berserk Gene by name. Waals knows nothing of Carlos, but says he had one lab assistant at PCL, but they've lost touch. As we leave, Waals mentions that Harry said he was investigating Fine Park.
---

He says it's an amusement park, and there was an incident there about a year ago where a Pokmon suddenly went wild during a parade. I bet this is related to that Pokmon Carnival that Pablo and Ludicolo mentioned. Pikachu suggests going to see Milo before leaving. Milo mentions that Brad took the Crawdaunt away, returning it to its home. Pikachu somehow falls asleep on the boat ride home, and dreams of his past with Harry. Talking to Waals, battling...something... and the accident. Pikachu's inability to use attacks ever since the accident is another mystery, and I feel like that can't even necessarily be explained away by the Mystery Dungeon theory. Amanda wonders if Pikachu just doesn't like boats and apologizes for scaring him, and Pikachu says it takes more than her driving to scare him; maybe he's just getting old. End of chapter, so that's a good stopping point even if it's early in a post and I usually try to fill these close to the character limit.
---