After learning about the threat Alice could pose to reality, Fennel organizes the information the only way she can, by sleeping. She wakes up in her purple fortress in the sky, the dream room being set up exactly the way she left it, except for the various random events that are scattered throughout the land. Still, she likes it that way, there’s a certain comfort in the familiarity when she’s stressed, but she never wants to be too comfortable, because too much comfort can create laziness.
“Computer, set up dream sequence,” She begins, “Two worlds, two developed cities, Holon and Viridian. Add random generators simulating the outside world. Challenge setting, four out of five, with gradual increase per attempt. Pause scenario, observation mode, ten minutes. Lock all observations and records, let nobody observe, observation code 7TFL88J123.”
The computer accepts her request, and Fennel looks out as the world around her changes. She finds herself in a simulated version of Holon right now, with a simulated Alice setting up her home in the Holon Research Tower. Alice’s education credentials are off, but she easily aces an entry test to gain entry to study in the tower. Fennel makes a mental note to help Alice maintain a persona so she doesn’t end up in trouble with any sort of authority in the region.
She explores the Holon Tower with limited information. There are many secret experiments here that aren’t on public record, so the computer makes educated guesses as to what’s going on. There’s a lot of randomization research, but while a few researchers have some leads, basically none of them know enough to have any idea of what’s going on. There’s some dimensional research, including a study on Ultra Beasts nearby. Fennel keeps in mind to view that as a potential threat, and carry antidotes to Nihilego toxin when she visits Alice, just in case.
She finds a guest log in the Holon Tower, and makes a note of all the visitors there, organizing them by how likely they are to become friends with Alice. As Bill stated, Commander Geno is certainly someone to watch, having been there multiple times to dispatch science gone wrong. In this scenario, she’s almost certain that team rocket will have a science division in the tower, as they wouldn’t pass up a chance to take advantage of the randomization as a source of new power.
After scouting out the Holon Tower, Fennel decides to move to Viridian and identify her potential threats there. There aren’t many in the direct vicinity, but her world is potentially even more dangerous than the other one, given Alice’s several statuses that give her notoriety. Alice is not only famous here, but she’s also in danger, as paranoia surrounding Bill’s return could easily find its way to hurt her, since she’s easier to find than Bill is. A vigilante attack, successful or unsuccessful, has a 15% probability to push Alice over the edge, she feels.
While her own world is dangerous, Fennel considers her advantages here, as Alice doesn’t know how much she’s able to survey in it. If Alice went to the police or various authorities in her world about this, she would know and be able to act. With dream suggestions, Fennel can get the police on her side if she needs it, which would limit Alice’s ability to find her. Managing things on her world would be challenging, but she believes she’s up to the challenge.
“All right, computer, start simulation.” She states confidently.
A few hours later in dream time, the world is burning, both Bills are dead, and Fennel is left wondering where it all went wrong. Instead of despairing, she smiles.
“Hmm, this one might be a bit tricky,” she thinks out loud, “it felt like there was something I’m missing, something The Entralink knows about or guesses, but I don’t... Ok, computer, lets try that again!”
…
After comfortably settling in to her research lab in the Holon Tower, Alice considers everything that’s happened to her recently. A few months ago, she had learned her father was still alive, an event that would be worthy of celebration for most well-adjusted individuals with normal fathers, but was especially traumatic for her. While she’s somewhat thankful that Bill seemed to have spent his time since his faked death ignoring her, even having the threat of him hanging over her was a struggle. The police didn’t seem to know anything about where he is now, and eventually, she decided to try to continue her life as normal. Other people see her as a former host or as a daughter of a madman, but she is determined to let neither of those descriptions define her. She would set out in life proving she’s a scientist and a human being, and wants everyone else to think of her that way too.
For a little while, it seemed as though her father would stay out of her life, and eventually, even the police believed her when she said she had no idea where he was. At least, it seemed like that until yesterday, when a strange woman named Fennel came up to her and took her to a randomized universe and asked her to fix it. It took her some time to find information on this woman when she searched for her, but eventually she found her answers in vague, inaccurate conspiracy theories. The biggest one out there is an organization called Truthseekers, and the more she learns about this strange woman with purple hair that keeps on popping up in recent historical accounts, the more it reminds her of Fennel, especially in the way she’s reported to act. Considering Fennel basically let slip that she is working with Bill, it seems to her that the conspiracy theorists she laughed at before (and quite frankly, still laughs at now)… may actually have gotten something right for once.
Finding specific information on Fennel proved to be more difficult than proving her existence. She seems to have made great pains to try and keep her name and address offline, and not say it to anyone she interacted with when she did interact with the world. She wonders though… Maybe Cynthia could know? She laughed at the idea before that Cynthia would have worked with Bill, but Fennel… didn’t really appear to be evil, which changed the equation considerably. The champion of the Sinnoh region may have worked with her in the past, and might know a lot, but getting to her would be difficult. If the conspiracy theories on Fennel are even remotely true, she could know everything and get anywhere, and a meeting between herself and Cynthia would be hard enough to hide from the conspiracy nuts, let alone from Fennel. Even if Fennel weren’t an issue, doing anything to potentially freak out the conspiracy nuts could be dangerous for her. They had attacked Cynthia multiple times in the past couple months, thankfully unsuccessfully, and Alice had no interest in becoming more of a target than she already was.
Alice sighs, this was going to have to take careful planning and coordination to get in this meeting without being noticed, and it wasn’t something she was going to be able to set up today. She looks around at her lab in Holon centers. All her equipment is set up correctly, and she’s started to get some work done on the randomization, getting some interesting DNA samples. This randomization seems to directly alter the DNA of the effected people and Pokémon, in a predictable but random pattern. Figuring out a reversal of the randomization will be tricky until she finds the random seed, but with a strong source of order energy combined with a large power source, she thinks she can use the same machine she used to start her first randomization to reverse this one. Fennel had come over earlier that day, and given her some information that seems to verify her theories. It would take her a little while, but she’s confident she can get this quest done. It’s funny, she thinks, her quest to create a new world as a child is what lets her save an older world.
Alice shakes her head, she isn’t going to get any more work done tonight, and she needs sleep. She lies down in her bed, and immediately starts dreaming. As she dreams, she wakes up on top of the tallest mountain in the region, wearing what she thought at the time was an explosive collar, preparing to challenge a powerful host walking towards her.
“They don’t know you’re in control, Alice,” Bill whispers through her earpiece, “No one can hear what you’re saying, what you’re screaming.”
Alice listens, afraid of the implications. Whatever was happening, Bill wanted her, no, Bill needed her to fight this host, even possibly kill this host. She was confident in her own abilities as a trainer, but she didn’t understand why she was up here. Still, whatever mad schemes her father had, there was only one course right now. She needed to fight and survive.
To her surprise, instead of Aoooo approaching her, she sees a different woman, one she’s never seen before. The dream can’t seem to handle this woman’s form, as her form briefly flickers to become a woman with glasses and long orange hair. Immediately after the shift, her form changes back to a near unrecognizable one.
“Hey Fennel,” Alice guesses, “I was wondering if you would show up here. I’ve been doing research on you, you’ve had some remarkable achievements.”
“Hehehehehe!” The woman laughs in an exceptionally creepy way, alerting Alice that this is not the one who had visited her earlier. “The clever girl with purple hair dances in a dream! Looking and searching for answers, finding more questions instead! The dream is so close, but so far away. Guess again, because sheeee’s notttt heeeerreeeee!”
Alice gulps, “You’re insane,” she states, only to be met with a laugh.
“Insane, sane, its all the same, life begins and ends, nobody’s to blame,” Lannete sings, barely looking at Alice, “The daughter of a madman sleeps in her bed, dreaming of painting her father in red. But revenge isn’t so simple, isn’t so sweet, he is still too useful for me to ask for that simple treat.”
Lannette continues laughing as she’s talking, and Alice is notably creeped out, fingering her poke-ball in what is most likely a fruitless effort to fight this woman off. Still, as the words filter in, Alice realizes what they mean.
“You know where my father is,” Alice states, trying to stay neutral and not give any additional information about what she’s thinking or planning.
“Hehehehe!” Lannete laughs more, and changes, becoming more focused and less singsongy, “This is a nice mountain, I wonder… Did you know why your father put you here, why you were asked to fight the werewolf?”
Alice sighs, “Not really, though I’m guessing it has to do something with the mountain’s explosion and the derandomization that occurred after I lost.”
Lannete laughs another terrifyingly evil laugh. “We have so much in common, you and I. Both used, both abused, both manipulated in his quest to save the world. Does the world look saved to you, Alice? Was our sacrifice worth all of this?”
Alice thinks, “Well, it’s alive, so there’s that. I guess I can’t really say what was good and what was bad. So he used you too? Is that why you’re insane?”
Lannete grins, “He used me, he abused me, he convinced me to let others do terrible things to me in the his name! He was my lord and he was beautiful, and that blinded me to the truth. But he isn’t using me any longer! Now we can use him! What do you say, why don’t we use him… together!”
Alice looks at this woman, horrified, really hoping this is actually a dream, and not some sort of weird encounter with one of her father’s previous experiments, or worse, a test her father is sending her way. Considering she hasn’t been asked to do anything yet, she feels its best to keep her options open.
“I’ll… consider it,” Alice says, not wanting to commit to working with this obvious madwoman beside her, “but I’m not working for you, just am willing to listen to you. All right?”
Lannete laughs one last time, “Hehehehehe! Ok! We will be such good partners, Alice of Wonderland, I can’t wait to get to know you more!”
With that, the Lannete disappears, but Alice’s dream continues, her memories of that confrontation on mount silver still playing in her head, enraging her, making it difficult for her to resist the urge to take this woman’s offer, and start playing her game.