#later scarlett is like 'oh hey arven when did you meet my parents?'

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

Sandwiched somewhere in my Pokeverse between my 37 disparate Scarlett Origin Stories is a subplot I’ve considered - probably while Scarlett is at Kitakami, which I will play someday - where Zoe goes to Clavell and is like "hey. Scarlett told me what happened in Area Zero with Sada and the time machine. Scarlett told me that you were told what happened in Area Zero with Sada and the time machine" and she basically proposes hey, Sada's research is still probably down there, and someone should probably assess the conditions of the ancient pokemon running loose in the crater and make sure they're in no danger of escaping the crater - especially the other Koraidon.

"Am I to assume," Clavell says, "that you intend to go into the crater for this purpose, regardless of my response?"

"Yeah," Zoe says. "But I do think it would help to have you along. You knew Sada - and her research - much better than I did."

And - a bit reluctantly, mind - Clavell agrees to go with Zoe (and N) to Area Zero to retrieve Sada's notes, and make their own ecological and behavioral assessment of the paradoxes now running loose.

And, as a potential plot complication, I've considered Arven somehow getting wind of this - maybe he just eavesdrops, like hey why is Scarlett's mom talking to the director, why did I just hear my mom's name? - and, being afraid that his best friend is gonna lose her parents in Area Zero the way he lost his mom, insists on coming along as backup. Refuses to hear no as an answer. Camps in the Zero Gate for a week to make sure that no one sneaks in past him.

So, even more reluctantly, the four of them begin a tense and awkward expedition into the crater. Clavell is urging Arven to go back to the surface and study and work on improving his grades the whole time. Arven is keeping a mental log trying to determine whether or not Scarlett's parents are good parents or whether he should kidnap his little buddy away from them or whatever. N is trying to talk to a Slither Wing. "She built a fucking time machine and only used it to teleport dinosaurs," Zoe gripes.

"What would you do with a time machine?" Arven asks, with the tone and expression of a guy who will use the answer to this question as further data for his analysis of are Scarlett's parents good parents? and are Scarlett's parents crazy?, which are two separate questions with potentially two separate answers, because Arven already knows that Scarlett is crazy.

And Zoe, whose answer to that question is go back to before Ghetsis created Team Plasma, take him hostage, and use him as bait to find out whether the old Lacunosa Town tales of Kyurem eating humans are true, is just like "...not teleport dinosaurs, that's for sure."

N gives everyone else a heart attack when he decides that the best way to determine if the other Koraidon is a continuing threat is walk right up to it and talk to it. Arven adds another tally mark under yes for his chart to answer are Scarlett's parents crazy?

Scarlett is in Kitakami making new friends and catching new pokemon and learning new myths and legends. She has no idea any of this is going on.