The dragon's OUTRAGE met the indifference of a SPIKY SHIELD as Wo-chien curled in upon itself defensively, waiting for the Hydreigon to exhaust itself with its own tantrum.[break][break]

"You have no right to deny me what I've claimed," Elisabeth snarled, clutching the poisoned crystabloom possessively tight in her hand.[break][break]

Vines that sought Andrea Vaneau plummeted, grasping at empty air, but shifted and changed in their descent to form a wall of thorns to deny her aerial assault. They rose up like some mythic labyrinth in a fairy tale, obscuring both Elisabeth Fiorelli and her Ruinous Beast from view as the forest turned terrifyingly alive with their mutual resentment.[break][break]

"Be grateful I have more important matters to attend to than you, brat," were her parting words, fading into the rustling of leaves.[break][break]

When the thicket of thorns and vines finally collapsed, whether due to Chomper or Andrea Vaneau's efforts, neither the woman nor her Pokemon would be visible in the aftermath.[break][break]

Escaping a loss had always been her favored win condition, empty and hollow as those victories tended to be.

[attr="class","ooc"] Andrea Vaneau

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"I care about what that Ruinous Beast wants to take from you," she said, uncaring that any deity of their three might overhear her blasphemy. "Some things, when lost, don't come back to us. I think you know that, Cross."[break][break]

One unloved child recognized another.[break][break]

What Elisabeth Fiorelli wanted from Rocket wasn't what THEO BECKETT and Cillian Quinn wanted. It wasn't even what BARNABY FINCH or Zev Harcourt wanted, either.[break][break]

She just wanted a swamp to sink deeper and deeper into, until nothing good of her was left to mourn.[break][break]

It was why Wo-chien had chosen her. It knew the depths to which she'd plunge.[break][break]

"Your father is dead, but whatever crimes he may have committed, you survived them. Don't let anyone take that life from you. Not Beckett. Not Chien-Pao. Not even me."[break][break]

Her hand squeezed his shoulder once more before releasing him, returning to her side as if nothing so intimate had occurred between them. Perhaps some of the residual frost that chilled him had transferred to her; she seemed almost statuesque as she regarded him now, a stone-faced Madonna imparting a strange juxtaposition of judgment and mercy.[break][break]

"I don't care what the details are. If you value all the sacrifices you've made until now, then don't squander them. Don't let your mind become someone else's."[break][break]

Once you let the devil in, you never knew which thoughts were truly your own.[break][break]

That had been true for her long before Wo-chien claimed her.

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Fine." A shrug rolled across her shoulders, the faintest irritation visible in the gesture. "My ask was a courtesy, Fox, nothing more. I am capable of manners, if incapable of honesty that meets your standards."[break][break]

Her fingers tightened their grip on the document, pulling it close to her chest as she rose to depart, herself. She didn't care for how he spoke of BARNABY FINCH, but she'd taken enough bait for the present moment to let that anger stay dormant.[break][break]

"I'll inform him of your request."[break][break]

Her displeasure nonetheless wrote itself across her face like an open book, the withering disapproval enough to show her opinion of the admin of intelligence was far more favorable than that of the man across from her.[break][break]

Poise and indifference had returned to her alike as she began to walk towards the door, before his final thought arrested her in place. Had she been facing howard slayte, he'd have seen her confusion that melted into abject startlement, and likely found it comical.[break][break]

Instead, he simply saw her pause.[break][break]

"Gift?" she echoed, before the memory returned to her. "Ah, that. I doubt his reaction is anything worthy of note."[break][break]

The unease in her reply worried otherwise.

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"If you believe me a liar, then so be it," she said, but the softness had fled her voice. It was empty of intonation, now. Flat. Almost tired. "But you'll find I rarely lie, Admin Fox. There's an art to it I find exhausting."[break][break]

She traded in half-truths, illusions, and deceptions. All were the same to a man like him, but made a world of difference to a woman like her.[break][break]

Her emotions betrayed her too easily for her to feign them.[break][break]

Perhaps howard slayte was the same, radiating fury and righteousness as he spoke of chronicling history and the stories she owed him. Was this story not enough, then? She struggled to suppress a small laugh at this, that he'd expect anything grander of her than the fall of the region's Champion to defend a man reviled by all.[break][break]

"I assure you that I am entirely disposable. But," she said, receiving the document between two manicured fingers, "I'll deliver this to Admin Bee, gladly."[break][break]

These days, she leapt for any excuse to see Rocket's admin of intelligence. To ensure that BARNABY FINCH was still himself, despite his Avatarship. To ensure nothing between them had changed, since his birdwatching.[break][break]

That he wouldn't leave her side, now that he had power of his own to wield.[break][break]

"Was there anything else you needed of me?"

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"The universe is uncaring, and we are all replaceable specks of dust, but the world will not soon forget kyle lopez."[break][break]

She'd already seen one such future unfold, with events that almost-mirrored this one. The calamity that came with his fall stretched to staggering degrees.[break][break]

The Beautifly Effect of this version of his death had yet to be seen.[break][break]

"This world will mourn him, in a way that it will never mourn us."[break][break]

A hand ran through her long blonde hair, restless, before resuming its place in her lap. Funerals had been a natural occurrence in her life, for awhile. She'd believed herself numb to deaths and obituaries.[break][break]

This one had been different.[break][break]

"I'll be sure to send the mug to you," she promised, her voice gentle, as if speaking to a child. "I think he'd like that you'd have it."[break][break]

She'd already re-sent that mug back to kyle lopez a long time ago on Palentine's Day. But she knew where to find that limited merchandise, and howard slayte wouldn't know the difference, only the sentiment.[break][break]

He was wrong. The truth didn't matter, only what people believed.

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Aren't we all?" she said distantly. "Afflicted with our own humanity, that is."[break][break]

He said something about his admiration of the Champion, but the words all jumbled together in her mind. She'd never idolized figures in that way. All of her idealization was up close and personal by design, intimate enough that it placed her in immediate danger from the object of her affections.[break][break]

A sense she was supposed to comfort him occurred to her suddenly, and for once, she indulged that impulse.[break][break]

Guilt compelled her to find a way to sympathize with him about this loss, however minor, that she'd caused him.[break][break]

"His merchandise, at least, wasn't as dismal as everyone else's. He gave me a mug with Matias Silph's face on it, once."[break][break]

A shaky, disbelieving laugh rocked her entire body despite its soft tenor. It felt blasphemous, given the context, but somehow she knew he'd approve of this memorial.[break][break]

"I think he found my dismay amusing. And I wager that you'd amuse him, too, for mourning him. He was that kind of man."

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Kyle knew. I think he knew more than anyone else how human Matias was."[break][break]

Her voice was softer than it should have been. Nearing reverent. kyle lopez hadn't been her target for assassination; he'd been collateral, foolishly sacrificing himself for a man who'd never earned his selfless devotion.[break][break]

Murder had never been enjoyable for her. The high of vengeance faded quickly, every time, into regret.[break][break]

It got quieter over time, but never fully went away.[break][break]

"The first time I saw MATIAS SILPH in Littleroot, I thought I was going to die. He terrified me. Groudon terrified me."[break][break]

This confession came unprompted, spilling out of her for reasons even she didn't quite understand. Still, she couldn't stop herself, each word tumbling out one after the other.[break][break]

"Every time we met after, I thought I was going to die. I thought he was going to transform back into that man I'd seen in Littleroot, and end my existence the way that meteor was meant to."[break][break]

She broke eye contact, finding something else to stare at. A statue, this time. Something Alolan, she thought. She couldn't be sure.[break][break]

"I forgot he was a man, for a little while. I should have known better." A bitter laugh escaped her lips, the irony of this final statement not lost on her. "Those who are hated and despised ache for human connection most of all."

[attr="class","ooc"] howard slayte

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Except she doesn't want to remember the slobbering greed of her patron that October day. Another woman who looked like Elisabeth Fiorelli had been there, seen those things, and suffered those evils.[break][break]

She swallows, wishing her body would obey her as freya morningstar nears, so close the other woman's breath warms her skin.[break][break]

This is a dream, and you cannot hurt me, her green eyes insist, wide-eyed with a terror she can't explain. When I awaken, you will be far away, and I will be somewhere you can't reach me.[break][break]

In Sootopolis, perhaps. In her dim, empty little apartment, where nothing and no one cares about her.[break][break]

(Or in a secluded garden no one knows, no one but her and BARNABY FINCH. Is that dream worth dreaming? Is that future within her grasp, in this place where so much seems possible?)[break][break]

Those golden eyes fill Elisabeth's vision, and all comprehensible thought dissipates like smoke from her mind.[break][break]

"I see nothing at all in your eyes."[break][break]

She refuses to blink. She refuses to give herself relief from this woman's scrutiny, to surrender.[break][break]

"They're empty, like mine."

[attr="class","ooc"] freya morningstar

Prismatic Penitentiary: Ugly Ward

[attr="class","pkmn"]