[attr="class","star1tsu2"]

[attr="class","star2tsu2"]The body of the Beast groans and cracks, shuddering with growing pains as it responds to the light above, the shimmering of stars. [break][break]

The woman dyed the color of the sea pulls him deeper into the toxic morass. [break][break]

He can hear the choir of the angels. Sirens on a distant shore calling him to join them, to live with them forever in forests of azure. To envelop him in beauty and pleasure, to smother him, til he becomes so lost in it he is liable to disappear. To be swallowed completely, teetering on the precipice above the howling abyss, scarcely out of reach of oblivion. The silence, the peace... what could be more maddening? [break][break]

Black hands grasp his face and pull his gaze toward her, where gold meets steel gray. [break][break]

This gaze-- knowing, pained-- pleads with him to save her, to rescue her from the chains of this mortal coil. She longs to join the angels. This incomplete form, this incomplete world, it shall never come close to the ideal that is to be near God, to live forever amid the choir and the danse under a sea of stars. [break][break]

But these are not the eyes he is familiar with. They are the eyes of something that is not used to seeing the world this way. Innocent, yet pained. As if it cannot bear something so incomplete. Whatever is behind that gaze is not the girl he remembers. It is the influence of the black ichor that surrounds them gazing through Tsubaki's vision at Navy now, the eyes of one of the angels.[break][break]


These words, they seem meant for him. All the same, they seem directed at something else.[break][break]

The midnight sea grows. Beyond the black, winter wails. And yet, here at its core, the angel protects him from the chaos outside. It is as a womb; protective, warm, inviting. He can stay however long he likes. [break][break]

Outside, the black of ideals is overtaken by the truth of white frost.[break][break]

Their world is rotten.[break][break]

It can be saved. It must. [break][break]

Shards of ice crack and fall away, as a gigantic tentacle filled with barbs sweeps at the similarly gigantic iceberg, attempting to swat it away. The sea is dyed black, hole ripped in the angel's chest seeping blood into its surroundings. It does not seem to notice. Instead, it focuses its animosity on this prodigal giant. Returned, though its blaring voice is dissonant with the song of the sea. [break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu2"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu2"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu4"]

[attr="class","star2tsu4"]She tilts her head, intrigued by the little prince's words. [break][break]

A glance at her Poketch, and her ship indicates it's ready to go -- but she's not quite done here yet. [break][break]

This planet, it belongs to the little prince. Not that it'd be useful for her purposes anyway, but she's lookin' for a place to lay claim to. But if someone's waiting on this other planet, could it belong to them? Even going there puts it on her radar, and if there's water, and resources... unlike this dump, no way her bosses won't take notice.[break][break]

"This guy waitin'... know his name, by chance? Anything about him? What else did he say?"[break][break]

Going in blind ain't gonna be ideal, but something tells her the little prince is a bit too easygoing to have much info. He's content to live and let live, unlike everyone else in this crowded galaxy.[break][break]

Still, that's a bit rude to assume-- that he's too simple to know certain things-- so she asks all the same. [break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu4"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu4"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu4"]

[attr="class","star2tsu4"]Hot. Nearly scalding. She remains in the water for what feels like a lifetime, but no matter how much she soaks or scrubs, she cannot wash something like that away. No matter how disgusting it feels, it's a sensation that hot water cannot cure, some impression lingering in her mind long after she's rubbed away a layer of dead skin.[break][break]

As her time in the showers ends, the sinking feeling remains. This desire that cuts through her like a knife. [break][break]

No wonder the crowd acted like it did back on Route 119 beneath the swamp. The chain, it was everything. It could bring that vision to fruition and more, if she'd only let it. If she merely submit to the call of the chains binding her even now... this pulsing organ around her neck, tightening like a noose and reminding her with every breath that the answer lie in reach, even as every breath became a little more strained... [break][break]

The mochi doesn't phase her. She swallows it whole, not even bothering to taste it anymore. When she swallows, all she feels is the tightening of the chain around her neck. [break][break]

She sits on the floor of her cell, looking up at Xenon Antheil with harrowing eyes. She signals passively to the solitary cot. The insane woman could do whatever she wanted with that thing, but she wasn't intending to use it.[break][break]

"Ain't tired. You sleep, if you want."[break][break]

She refuses the call of dreams. No dream will satisfy her now. Nothing could possibly suffice but the visions granted by the mask, and what she desires most... she won't attain it by sleeping. [break][break]

She stares at the floor of her cell for what feels like hours, entranced by the shimmering lights cast by the crystal hanging overhead. When she finally moves, it's like she's come to a decision after a long deliberation. She raises her hand to her neck and squeezes tight, feeling the chain pulse beneath it. [break][break]

An overpowering urge fills her. Hesitation, and she resists, only just. Biting the chain, like a wounded lycanroc gnawing off its own limb caught in a ursaring trap, fills her with unimaginable dread. It's become a part of her now, a piece of her own body, and self-preservation remains her primary motivation. [break][break]

Still, she wonders what might happen, biting into the flesh and becoming one with it... [break][break]

Just as she contemplates the thought, the chain begins to move. It constricts, grows ever tighter. She gasps, spitting curses through a crushed windpipe.[break][break]

"--Sh-shit, n-not waitin' any longer, are ya?"[break][break]

'Fuck', she thinks to herself. It's the last conscious thought she can remember. The chain grows tighter, crushing her windpipe and rendering everything black. [break][break]

Then, she awakens with a gasp, clutching her neck. She reels around, glancing in all directions in a panic, trying to get her bearings. The skies remain that same black, like the darkest day in a distant dream. The chain has freed her. She frantically looks around, feeling some sense of loss. A phantom pain, where a limb may be. [break][break]

Then, she registers the architecture. It reminds her of a certain ship.[break][break]

"... The hell... is this..."[break][break]

The world seems to shift under her feet. She falls backward, feeling panic clutching at her throat like a tightening chain. Grasping her bare neck with a hand, shallow breaths echo through her head. She glances upward at a familiar shape floating in a vat. It appears to be glowing, but no matter how she tries to imagine what it could be, to conjure an image of it in her mind, she can only make out the shape of a young girl in the silhouette... [break][break]

"... M... Manju...?"[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu4"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu4"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu2"]

[attr="class","star2tsu2"]Black thorns clash against hardened fists, organic and metallic alike. Barbs black as midnight, reeling in the current of the maelstrom. At its center, the angel lies. [break][break]

Golden eyes grace cold steel. The body of an ancient golem, made of the metals of the sea. Recognition, finally, of a truth she had hidden from herself. [break][break]

Before she can process that lingering feeling a wall of ice obscures her vision, hides that truth a little while longer. A more ancient golem takes its place, one far more of interest to the angels. [break][break]

The nihilego are encrusted by a layer of frost. Weighed down, their elegant dance is thrown off. With each step, they begin to clash against one another, cracked and shattered broken bodies like glass that turn to fine dust amid the snow.[break][break]

And yet, they frenzy all the same, clashing against one another wildly like waves clash amid a stormy sea. No regard for their safety, merely excitement at the prospect of what is to come. Their bodies are of little object, of little concern. They are forever in Eternatus. [break][break]

"Hypocrites, all of you! Everyone - humans - is such a hypocrite! What gives you the right!? You'll kill, in order to save... but more'll be killed than you'll ever rescue! All you're doing is perpetuating the very cycle you hate so much!"[break][break]

Malice pours from her lips. Words ostensibly belong to her, dyed in her colors, but Navy would recognize they're words she herself would never say. They're too direct, too concerned with the logic of it all. The ichor taking its toll, deep within the shell.[break][break]

As Navy plunges his hands deep, the pain is unbearable, liking plunging one's arms into molten slag. The black stains his hands, sets him alight. The motionless corpse within, proof she's alive coming only from glowing golden eyes, suddenly grabs his wrists with inhuman strength and speed. They hold him there, as the tentacles wrap around him. Poison barbs shoot toward him at all angles.[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu2"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu2"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu4"]

[attr="class","star2tsu4"]Despite her protests, the rest of the prisoners accept their dilemma, no matter how false. [break][break]

Scornfully, she gazes on Elisabeth Fiorelli, Xenon Antheil, and all those who cast their judgement, seeing themselves fit as Arceus to deliver unto others their fate. A huff of indignation and nothing more, she silently broods on a realization she made long ago-- one she'd come across and discarded, but nevertheless, one that affirmed itself every single time she came across it.[break][break]

People would condemn others for their own benefit. Not out of hatred, not out of spite, but simply because they did not care about others nearly as much as themselves. [break][break]

That was people's greatest flaw, and the difference between them, and pokemon. [break][break]

She's granted admission to the Chamber of Desires with the others, and with it, she hesitates. For all she's aware, nothing in this cold, dead heart wants for anything. However...[break][break]

"Navy, calm down. Please."[break][break]

She wants to assure him it's alright, but not here. This is no place for comfort. She bears his desperate pleas as best she can, swallowing her trepidation and placing the mask to her face...[break][break]

---

---

Breathless sigh, and her head is left spinning. She'd expected to see nothing at all, but this pain in her chest between where her lungs burn when she's running, a place where her heart should be... what was this feeling...?[break][break]

The others put the mask on one by one, and then they're shepherded along. Stripped of everything, including their clothes.[break][break]

She notes the familiar faces. John Sullivan, Yuina Higashi, freya morningstar, and luka chêne. Others she's never seen before, too. But none of that matters. Whether she knows them or not, she doesn't care. [break][break]

It feels liberating being freed after spending so long chained down. [break][break]

And no matter what they do, Tsubaki maintains her dignity. They cannot strip her of that. [break][break]

She's faced a prison's communal showers before. Embarrassment is the goal, the debasement of one's sense of self. Knowing that goal, she does not show even a shred of it. The only thing she wears is a scowl, toward the megalopolans, toward the bird, toward the other prisoners, toward the very notion she must be embarrassed. [break][break]

She does not cover herself, does not even make an attempt. [break][break]

This was how she came into this world. There is nothing to hide.[break][break]

[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu4"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu4"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu4"]

[attr="class","star2tsu4"]Tsubaki merely glares at Xenon Antheil . [break][break]

No way in hell she's telling her anything beyond what she needs to know. Psycho beating herself against the bars ain't got the kind of discretion necessary to keep that secret, and besides-- their voices echo around the panopticon. She's not letting her captors in on the plan.[break][break]

"Get us to the chamber, you'll find out."[break][break]

Seems that works.[break][break]

The ward meets its quota and then some. [break][break]

Based on the petty show of punitive justice hanging over all their heads, maybe it's cause they're the most obedient. Nobody here was stupid enough to pick a fight with the toxic gaolers. She'd expect that from the Weakling ward, something to prove. She'd expect that from the Dummy ward, no thoughts in their heads. [break][break]

Maybe, just maybe, it's cause these Ugly people can't afford another knock to the face. They'd be ugly inside AND out. [break][break]

Through whatever miracle, they're the favored. The lucky ones. [break][break]

"Bastards."[break][break]

She mutters under her breath, watching each of the pokemon be crushed by mallets overhead. [break][break]

Then, their captors decide on their little game. [break][break]

The first to speak is Michael Navidson . She thought she'd heard his voice, just a whisper as she worked, but now... with those words, she knew it was him. Nobody else would be that stupid. Arceus, if he's here too...[break][break]

"Nineteen, at the most. Speakin' for others don't get you far in a place like this. Know you ain't used to that. Just so you know, that situation comes up... first one to point fingers and single people out has my vote. That's you."[break][break]

She addresses Elisabeth Fiorelli directly. That cold, cruel voice was ice in her veins. She recognizes it instantly. It could only belong to one-- and Tsubaki would never allow a Rocket Underboss to speak for her again. [break][break]

She had to give her credit. Elisabeth was fit for the job she had. She knew how to make enemies. [break][break]

Whatever lie in the Chamber of Desires, Tsubaki almost wanted to squander their chances to keep Elisabeth away from it. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you saw it, their fates were tethered together for the moment. She wouldn't spite herself for the sake of some woman like that. What mattered wasn't spiting Rocket. What mattered was getting the hell out of here.[break][break]

She stops and thinks, listening to the rest of the room argue. [break][break]

Some part of her cold, dead heart makes her wonder what ward would be best to punish. She's been beaten down so long it almost seems easy. It makes her skin crawl, the way she doesn't even stop to consider who these strangers are. Navy's here beside her. And, according to his delusional whispers, so is freya morningstar . That leaves near nobody in hoenn left she truly cares for. It's purely a calculation. [break][break]

Her mind tells her Dummy Ward. She could never suffer a fool. [break][break]

The only thing that holds her tongue is Navy's words, and the fact that Elisabeth Fiorelli had said the exact same.[break][break]

Then, John Sullivan makes a compelling point. [break][break]

"... They're right. Only winnin' move's not to play. We choose, we're surrendering our humanity. Some of you..." She pauses, glancing to Elisabeth, "may be fine with that, but I ain't. Spent too long tryin' to live that way. They want a sacrifice, then let it be us. I'm not condemning anyone anymore."[break][break]

Desires be damned. [break][break]

If the only way to get out of here was dragging down others to get ahead, then how was that any different from those five years in Kanto? Hadn't she changed at all? [break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu4"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu4"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu4"]

[attr="class","star2tsu4"]She blinks. [break][break]

Suddenly, what looks like a large rock slowly moves. It's breathing. Realizing what it is, she slides her hand from Eris's grip and runs to its side. Eris's words echo around the chamber, but it isn't until Tsubaki's already kneeling before it that she begins to understand.[break][break]

"It's hurt, Eris."[break][break]

She says the obvious, as if in disbelief.[break][break]

"C'mon, help me!"[break][break]

She reaches out to touch the persian, looking over its unconscious body for signs of any injuries. [break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu4"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu4"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu4"]

[attr="class","star2tsu4"]Her brain's rattling around her skull now, unable to sit still. Her lungs are still. She's barely able to breathe. Something is calling, threatening to tear her eyes away. The only thing that keeps her attention focused on Eris is the story she's telling, something a girl this young has no right knowing.[break][break]

Something Tsubaki must know.[break][break]

She's younger than her, just a little older than she was when she first stepped on the battlefield. She'd seen not just death, but the interplay of Gods, and aliens, and all sorts of mind-shattering things that she herself can scarcely comprehend. [break][break]

It makes a long-dead heart pang with an unfamiliar feeling. [break][break]

Sympathy, perhaps. [break][break]

She's seeing herself in this girl.[break][break]

... But, what of the angels?[break][break]

"Attacked how... ?"[break][break]

Her words are hollow, coming out as if they've been echoing around inside her for the longest time, as if she's long left that thought behind. She turns, finally focusing on the pokemon sprawled on the bank of the underground lake for the first time. But that's not what's grasping for her attention. [break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu4"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu4"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu4"]

[attr="class","star2tsu4"]She leers at him, sudden dangerous look in her eye as she notes the bodies. Just like a League officer, refusing to abstain from murder. That's why this whole mess had unfolded in the first place, why she'd been so eager way back when, recruits joining up in Kanto in droves... [break][break]

Only the knowledge that this is a simulation, a memory, is enough to quell her boiling rage just beneath the surface. [break][break]

"The docks. Hurry."[break][break]

She doesn't wait for the officer to follow, tearing her way through slateport. Aja splatters the pavement with sticky-red syrup in their wake, making pursuit by the Rockets impossible, while Midori distracts with bouts of rage powder and haphazard hexes cast at those in their way. [break][break]

Finally, they arrive at the docks just as the sun sets. Renowned for its nightlife, Slateport's familiar sparkling lights are nowhere to be seen. The power's been cut, and they're stranded in the dark.[break][break]

"Hate the dark. Ever since..."[break][break]

Ever since she'd witnessed Galar's Knight in that dream. [break][break]

She realizes she'll sound insane if she says anything, and her voice catches in her throat. [break][break]

"... Nevermind. Gunner, you see anything?"[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu4"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu4"]♠

[attr="class","itemcolitems"]

[attr="class","itemcoltextbox"]

[attr="class","star1tsu4"]

[attr="class","star2tsu4"]There's a moment's hesitation. [break][break]

"Two...?"[break][break]

She mouths the word breathlessly. The pounding in her ears is growing louder by the second, calling attention to something in her periphery, but she can scarcely hear it over the shock of that revelation. [break][break]

"One went missing? On that day? How do you mean?"[break][break]

The girl's really starting to freak her out now. Saying odd things she really shouldn't. This better not be one of her practical jokes... [break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu4"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu4"]♠

[attr="class","star1tsu"]

[attr="class","star2tsu"]There's a fierce look in her eye til Merlo adds that last bit. [break][break]

She can't blame him for the sentiment. The world to come isn't theirs to inherit. They've done enough to make it a worse place, the least they can do is correct their mistakes. If that means laying down their lives, then... [break][break]

Well, she gets it. But she can't agree with it.[break][break]

"The last thing this world needs is more people dying, on either side."[break][break]

She stares at him for a moment. Then her eyes shift to the vials on the desk, containing traces of that toxic chain. There's a storm brewing. He knows just as well as anyone what the arrival of those Megalopolans means. Soon, everything will come to a head.[break][break]

"Gonna need more than just the League to stop what's to come. You and I are proof, there's people in Rocket who wanna do good. Just don't know how. We need them on our side. Can't convince 'em if you're dead."[break][break]

She holds out her hand, to help yank him out of his chair and onto his feet. [break][break]

"... Gonna need more than your best, Merlo."[break][break]

[attr="class","star3tsu"][attr="class","rouxcredittsu"]♠