#wickepost

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“Oh, Ms. Wicke! I haven’t seen you in quite a while, m’am!” Lillie gives Wicke a polite curtsey.

"Oh my gosh! Miss Lillie, it's been so long! Too long!" The instinct in Wicke was to bow her head slightly, the respect she gave to all members of the Aether family.

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lusamine look at wicke's belly. "...Wicke why your belly moves?"

Wicke's eyes nearly popped out of her head. "P-President Lu-Lusa-oh sh-sh-"

She could barely speak, she was so surprised. Eventually, the bloated businesswoman stammered out, "President Lusamine!! What are you, uh, d-doing here? I thought you were away!"

Her round, gravid belly rippled, and Wicke bit her lip. Such a peculiar feeling~!

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"Ma'am, when I said that you could have the free samples you could eat....I didnt mean the entire dish..."

“...O-oh, my, uh, dear me, my apologies!!” Wicke flushed a slight tinge of red, juuuust a bit embarrassed. “Well, uh... I can pay for this, you don’t have to worry about that...!”

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Story from the past.

Wickes first ever experience with ultra beast.

"Don't be such a worrywart Wicke, we've been over the numbers countless times. There's no way this can go wrong."

Aether President Lusamine was cool and calm, and, by extension, so was Wicke. Despite the assistant branch manager's nerves trying to find a way to frazzle her, she could always rely on her president to smooth out all those wrinkles. Even if she wasn't quite sure trying to break through into another universe was a very good idea, like... at all, Wicke clung to every honeyed word that Lusamine offered. After all, in the end, she had a way of always being right!

"...yeah, screw that. I'll be in another room watching you guys get rendered into metaplasmic... goo or whatever." Speaking of always, there was also Faba, who was always taking a much more pessimistic tack. "Someone's got to remain alive. Foundation isn't quite self-sufficient enough to keep running without a head, after all." As his words implied, the scientist was on his way out the door, offering a small wave back to the three working on the wormhole projector. "Of course, if this doesn't end up a mess... you gotta say hey to the aliens for me."

The other man in the room, a well-built blond with sleeves rolled up as he tinkered with the projector, let out a laugh. "Aliens, pokémon, humans from another universe... I'll be sure to write your name on the gift baskets, Faba. Say it's from all of us." Faba offered a wink, a finger gun, and a click of the tongue back to Mohn before the bespectacled scientist shut the door, locking the three remaining scientists in the white, empty room. It almost looked like an auditorium, with incredibly high ceilings and a persistent echo added to every sound.

After all, when you're gonna make a wormhole, might as well have as much room as possible... but you gotta keep it inside. Interpol probably wouldn't be too happy if they found out about any idle wormholery.

Wicke stood off to the side, clutching a clipboard that she poured over, again and again, checking and rechecking all the calculations in her head. It all seemed to make sense, sure, and earlier testing of the projector didn't indicate any excessive risks, but...

The projector began to whir as blue lights began to glow along the sides of the machine. Mohn let out a satisfied laugh, lightly whacking the side of it with his hand. "Aha! Working like a dream. Lusa?"

The tall, blonde scientist opposite Wicke and Mohn smirked as she flicked a switch on a small console connected to the projector via thick, bundled wires. "All readings are satisfactory, dear. No overheat, no interference, no distethering... I think this is it!"

All three of the scientist's hearts raced. Wicke was nervous, Mohn was excited, and Lusamine was ready to show why she was the president of Aether. To think, all of this came to her in some weird, vivid dream, visions of alien landscapes and people from adjacent realities...

Against the flat white wall of the projector bay, a small blue circle began to flicker, spinning as it seemed to grow. Floating just above the wall, it defied gravity, a ring of light hanging plainly in the air. This was as far as they had gotten before, but, as Lusamine began to push a lever up, she grinned. This was far more than just a test.

The projector grew louder, and the point of light from its 'lens' seemed to grow ever brighter. So much so that Mohn and Wicke recoiled, shielding their eyes, but Lusamine was just getting started, throwing another lever with a loud ka-chunk. "Throwing off the actuality burners!" she called out to the two.

Around now was when Mohn started getting the same creeping feeling of dread that Wicke had earlier. Although this is what he wanted, it really was... something was off. As the blue ring grew in size, glowing cracks seemed to emerge from behind it, spidering out through the air.

"Uhh... honey? Lusa? What's up with the readings, what do they look like?" These pleas fell on deaf ears, as Lusamine was no longer looking at the readings (which were starting to wobble unpredictably, a sign that would have been alarming). Instead, Lusamine was transfixed by the glowing portal, which was growing larger and larger.

A low rumble began to emit from the portal, and the floor began to shake. Hell, the entire room shook, and the projector seemed to start vibrating, shooting off all kinds of concerning noises. Wicke, who was less focused on the wormhole and more focused on survival, began to step backwards, fear welling into her eyes that caused any verbalizations of concern to get clogged in her throat.

And then... first contact.

Something white and translucent began to snake its way out of the sides of the portal, what resembled white... tendrils... tentacles probed the sides, seemingly testing the air. About this time was when a panicked voice called out over the intercom, a woman's voice.

"Shut that god damn thing off!" It was Burnet, one of Lusamine's fellow scientists that offered to help, albeit from afar. Immediately following that was Faba's voice, likewise freaking the fuck out.

"Lusamine! Lusamine!! What the... what the hell is that?!"

Seemingly spreading the sides of the wormhole, causing the cracks in space itself to widen, was what appeared to be the origin of the white tendrils. A... head, maybe, resembling a cross between a white sun hat and the clear bell of a jellyfish poked its head out. Despite its lack of eyes, or even a face, everyone knew it was staring directly at Mohn, who was the closest to the portal.

As Wicke tripped, sprawling backwards onto her ass, and Lusamine watched, almost in a trance, the creature lurched forward, screeching in an otherworldly wail.

The last thing anyone saw before the flash of the wormhole collapsing was Mohn entangled, the beast attempting to latch onto him... and then nothing at all.

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Lillie would playfully squeeze Wicke’s belly.

"Oh! Well hello there, Miss Lillie! Enjoying yourself, I presume?"

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" I love your glasses, pretty lady! "

The creature ecamines wicke closely, chittering and licking her face with her long tongue.

...that's not a pokémon! Wicke seemed at a loss, surprised at what she was seeing... hearing, too, she was used to seeing spooky-looking things, but usually they didn't talk.

Nonetheless, slowly, she'd raise an arm to rub at where the tongue-person-thing licked her, before offering a warm smile. It seemed pretty nice, whatever it... she? was.

"Oh... err, well, thank you! When selecting them, I sought the perfect color and shape to complement the rest of my outfit... and from the sounds of it, I must have succeeded, heh...!"

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How much food is Wicke able to pack away?

"A little too much, some would say. Although, it goes without saying, that's just the price paid for living deliciously. Fortunately, the Foundation snack bar is free, so I don't have to pay the actual price, either!"

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"If there was any Ultra Beast research of that nature, would someone not from the Aether Foundation be able to volunteer?" A young brunette looks up at Wicke, biting her lip a bit at the thought of helping out. (newbietrainer)

"...hhff, no comment... anhhh, geez, uh..." The researcher looked at the girl in front of her, thinking for a moment as the tips of her fingers stroked the side of her twitching gut.

"...hhhh, maybe. Maybe!"