It would be giving Elisabeth Fiorelli far too much credit to suggest she had chosen Beast Shred Zeppelin out of some sadistic desire to prolong his torturous adventure in the Rocket bathrooms.[break][break]

The reality, in truth, was she had selected the first Beast who had appeared available for this mission. A strange desire for senseless violence had taken over her as of late, and simple missives like this one enabled that unhealthy instinct nicely.[break][break]

For that reason, perhaps, she had brought Wo-chien with her as her Pokemon of choice. The two had begun warily interacting with one another more since being forced to wield the Ruinous Beast's power against Kyurem, and without meaning to, Elisabeth had slipped into old habits far too comfortably and with far too little resistance.[break][break]

She told herself she was more in control of her mental faculties at present than she had been on Mirage Island. In the strictest, most technical sense of the word, that observation of herself was true.[break][break]

But it was not as true as she'd have liked it to be.[break][break]

"Beast. Given you are the tactical expert in matters of warfare," she began, glancing over the hulking Archaludon before her green eyes flitted to her companion, "what is the strategy you'd like to employ in this mission?"[break][break]

She refused to call him by his codename, 'Dread Threatening.' She'd die first.[break][break]

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[attr="class","ooc"] Shred Zeppelin

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Well. This was refreshingly simple.[break][break]

Military stratagems weren't exactly her forte, but this sort of thing she felt confident in executing more or less. How fortuitous.[break][break]

"We demolish the infrastructure, then," she said with a brusque incline of her head in approval. A palmed Pokeball released, unveiling a whinnying Glastrier with frost-wreathed hooves. "Straightforward enough."[break][break]

She mounted the glacial stallion, glancing down at the Beast as if debating whether or not this was a reckless, foolhardy plan. Some part of her whispered that it was -- the part of her that was more comfortable being a poisoner in the shadows than a melee unit on the frontlines.[break][break]

(In all fairness, Elisabeth didn't know what a melee unit was either. kyle lopez had never gotten far enough to explain the concept that one time they unknowingly gamed together.)[break][break]

"I'll leave Wo-chien with you, just in case," she said, and the pinpricks of ochre eyes in the shadows revealed the Ruinous Beast hissing on the sidelines. "Follow when ready."[break][break]

The AVALANCHE that struck the earth with the Glastrier's brisk gallop forward caused the nearby buildings to begin to collapse all around them.[break][break]

It would soon become evident that one or neither of them knew what they were doing.[break][break]

xaOMQRIS

[attr="class","ooc"] Shred Zeppelin

[attr="class","pkmn"]

This was the thing no one told you about destroying an entire group of buildings: you probably didn't want to be in the center of all the wreckage. Elisabeth, belatedly, caught onto that idea as the giant chunks of snow slide off the nearby structures, causing them to groan loudly and topple one after the other.[break][break]

Cutting off her exit, in fact.[break][break]

The Glastrier whinnied in warning, bucking as Elisabeth swore under her breath. She glanced behind her to see an impenetrable wall of ice and snow, and concern rose in her for the Beast she'd left behind.[break][break]

"Beast," she called, and no one responded. "Beast?" Still no answer. A terrible sense of dread took hold of her. "DREAD THREATENING?" she shouted at the top of her lungs.[break][break]

Arceus, this was the worst mission ever.[break][break]

A strange light began to shine behind the snow then, glowing brighter and brighter with dreadful intent.[break][break]

Meanwhile Wo-chien watched it build from its side of the barrier, waiting for the beam to fire with an unimpressed look in its beady ochre eyes.

_N08FBlm

[attr="class","ooc"] Shred Zeppelin

[attr="class","pkmn"]

The ELECTRO SHOT heralded a glorious symphony of chaos, answering her plea.[break][break]

Light, radiant and terrible, burst through the debris with a shattering of glass and snow. The impact sent Elisabeth and her stallion to the ground, flinging her against the walls of ruined science structures. A delayed IRON DEFENSE shimmered before horse and fallen rider, protecting against unexpected projectiles as the Beast's herald performed its magnificent barrage of destruction.[break][break]

The Archaludon took no prisoners. The scientists of this outpost had no chance, not between the onslaught of snow and now liquid-hot electricity.[break][break]

Elisabeth's eyes widened slightly.[break][break]

To think a Beast's single Pokemon had such power. Incredible. No wonder he'd been given the mantle of one of Rocket's most powerful members. If she were to be brutally honest with herself, she'd had her doubts about this one, but she'd kept them private. No need to cause any more 'infighting,' as THEO BECKETT would accuse her of doing.[break][break]

She turned to look at the distant man with a newfound respect, only to wince as her ankle gave way the moment she tried to stand.[break][break]

Had she sprained it? Arceus, just her luck. She stared at her ankle, swollen and miserable, and let out a vexed sigh. Well. How mortifying.[break][break]

"I'm alive," she called back, finally hearing his distant voice. Again she attempted to stand, and again she failed, managing to get to her knees as she leaned against her Glastrier. "Mildly incapacitated, but fine."[break][break]

Bitterly, she wished her powers more easily lent themselves to healing. What ones did were tied to Wo-chien... who was unfortunately on the other side of the infrastructural nightmare she'd trapped herself in.[break][break]

And if she knew that Ruinous Beast at all, it probably found the whole situation profoundly amusing.[break][break]

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[attr="class","ooc"] Shred Zeppelin

[attr="class","pkmn"]

She didn't have the same grief about destruction and devastation that he did. Better them than us, was the voice that whispered back to her when she stared at that bleak reality. Better to be the villain than the victim.[break][break]

Though in her current state, she felt more like the latter than she'd prefer. It was a reminder that no matter how high she ascended in Rocket, her own personal weaknesses continued to drag her down in the eyes of others.[break][break]

She'd met several Beasts during her tenure in Rocket, besides Shred Zeppelin.[break][break]

bryan delarosa, whose Xerneas might have healed her in her current state, while he laughed at her seeming weakness compared to his own strength. Zev Harcourt, who would have made a searing remark about her inability to keep up with him, blunt and harsh in his judgment of her. Alexandra Briarwood, whom she'd once hoped to impress during a dim-lit conversation at a bar. mint frost and Tempest Quinn, who probably would have cracked a joke or two, but been shocked and concerned to see her in this state.[break][break]

When this Beast came to her, she didn't know what to expect from him exactly. One-armed and mummified, it was difficult to read his expression at a distance. She tensed, preparing for a judgment that she knew to expect for someone in her position. Better to expect the worst, wasn't that right?[break][break]

That way nothing could surprise you. Except, impossibly, he did.[break][break]

Shred Zeppelin offered no critique of her as he moved to lift her from the ground -- something she initially resisted, until she realized how impossible the effort would be to rise up on her own. Leaning on him to get upright, she stared at him in mild confusion, which was enough time for him to enact his baffling plan of tossing her over his shoulder.[break][break]

"You might find it easier," she said, attempting to bite back the less-than-charitable thoughts this position invoked in her, "to simply deposit me on my Glastrier."[break][break]

It wasn't gratitude, but it wasn't an insult either. That made it a fair enough compromise of her feelings.[break][break]

Having managed to convince him that leveraging her Pokemon was the path of least resistance, she avoided the unbearable fate of being seen carried on someone's back into the base. Rather than a sharp annoyance, however, a pensiveness took hold of her as she studied him from atop the Glastrier.[break][break]

"It goes without saying that your discretion is appreciated." She stated it like it was a fact rather than a request. She wasn't sure she had the right to demand it from him, but she wasn't above leveraging her position to make it so.[break][break]

Then again. He had chosen not to make light of her predicament, hadn't he? Her implied order suddenly left a bad taste in her mouth; she swallowed back the guilt it had unexpected invited, burying that emotion to the best of her ability.[break][break]

"Your Pokemon fought well back there," she said instead, compelled to say something -- anything -- to distract herself. "I'll be sure to make a note of it in your files."[break][break]

An awkward silence lingered the rest of the journey home.[break][break]

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[attr="class","ooc"] Shred Zeppelin

[attr="class","pkmn"]