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POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 8:18:52 GMT

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Empty was air that she breathed, tasting its cold bite and wishing for snow.[break][break]

Wish for something like a blanket, something clean and clear that could smother; Bailey Cooper breathed and watched her breath as it rose like her spirit. Rising, twisting, and then to lose its opacity as her air was lost to the gray skies.[break][break]

A hedge of gravestones. At this hour, candles lined their row and illuminated their faces; cold-cut stone tight into an unloving groove, where names and once-people laid.[break][break]

A bundle of flowers in her hands. They were wrapped in clear plastic, and water freely dripped down the stems of the unorganized arrangement.[break][break]

They were laid, resting beneath the list of names that always seemed to stretch longer and longer.[break][break]

Like Mt. Pyre, she found the oppression of gray to be stimulating to her thoughts; stimulating to a thought of her own suffocation.[break][break]

In a plain, pale hoodie, she drew its hood and checked her phone; something to stimulate, and to distract her from words that lingered and begged to be spoken to long-gone ghosts.

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[attr="class","euterpetag"]Cillian Quinn

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memorial maintenance

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POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 8:56:22 GMT

It's his first time to Ever Grande, and he takes in not the sights of the city but of its graves.

Hoenn bears new scars alongside those left by Rocket's attempted invasion years past, though now many of Rocket mourn with the rest. Villain though he would be marked should Hoenn discover his secret, Gavin feels as if the air itself is heavier here; like it's drawing upon the grief of mourners and victims and dispersing it out into the atmosphere.

It's quiet, no visitors in sight as he patrols the perimeter of the monument. Even in his pensive state, his actions were selfish ones: community service, to maintain a reputation he'd so carefully cultivated.

He turns past a row of stones and the beam of his flashlight sweeps across a lone figure. With her hood up, Gavin doesn't realise who she is. He notes the fresh flowers and doubts her as one of the vandals he's here to shoo away. He directs the flashlight down, so as not to blind her if she turned.

"Sorry, didn't know someone was out here."

[break]
Bailey Cooper

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lavaridge

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POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 9:16:54 GMT

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Her tired eyes would try to avoid the stare of the beam.[break][break]

The champion would return the cellphone to her pouch, like the loss of its presence would snap her from her stupor. As she'd turn, her hands would fold in this middle pocket atop her phone, fingers snared.[break][break]

“No biggie,” and her violet eyes would carry with a detached gaze, rising to meet him only when the flashlight was redirected.[break][break]

There was no hint of recognition. No shift in her posture or expression as she remained closed tight in stance and in lungs.[break][break]

“Visiting hours over, or something?”

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[attr="class","euterpetag"]Cillian Quinn

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. . .

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the Harbinger

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circhester, galar

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TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 9:23:01 GMT

"Oh."

It's not till she turns that he recognizes her, and he's struck by the bizarre urge to laugh as he remembers the last time they'd been in close proximity: she'd busted right into a Rocket operation to deal with some poison-types and demanded they evacuate.

He suppresses the urge, expression solemn.

"Nah, they've just hired me to chase off the brainless idiots who think it's cool to deface a fucking war memorial." He shakes his head with very real disgust. There were lines that shouldn't be crossed. "Doubt I could chase you off if I wanted to."

There's a touch of dry humour, there; she had quite a reputation.

[break]
Bailey Cooper

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lavaridge

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POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 9:50:02 GMT

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She attributed the shift in his expression to recognition.[break][break]

It was hard to adapt; the way that the eyes of citizens that would alight when they would glance in her direction. It ran counter to what she was accustomed to.[break][break]

Maybe, it was for the best that she felt uncomfortable in her own skin. It kept her from accepting that blinded attention.[break][break]

“Least it's domestic,” she'd reply, visage twisted to reflect an expression of equal distaste. “It won't come out of a portal in the sky.”[break][break]

At the mention of her status, she would raise a bare hand from the pouch to wave his concern away.[break][break]

Her flesh, blackened by the contract of her avatarship, would be visible.[break][break]

“I'll behave. I won't make a job like this any harder than it has to be,” and with that wave, the charcoal stain against the flesh that would saturate in the stale air, curling with the faintest hint of steam.[break][break]

“I'll be leaving soon, anyway.”

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[attr="class","euterpetag"]Cillian Quinn

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. . .

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POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 9:59:22 GMT

"Solid point," he grimaces.

Having experienced the inside of a wormhole himself, albeit a twisted mockery of one torn apart by abuse of the rifts between worlds, he'd rather deal with a thousand vandals before anything else borne of such an alien world.

His gaze catches on the brands in her flesh: it's nigh impossible not to notice, but he finds the courtesy not to stare. He'd found out, in the days after the Mauville attacks, that it had been Bailey Cooper herself alongside the earth shaker that was Groudon. He was powerful, one of Rocket's best, but even Gavin doubted his chances against such a force.

"Far as I'm concerned, you can stay as long as you like," he assures her. A pause, then, "I was at Mauville, too. Think you've earned the right to loiter."

[break]
Bailey Cooper

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POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 10:18:22 GMT

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Mauville conjured imagery that she was keen to ignore.[break][break]

“...Guzzlord destroyed my motorcycle,” she would say aloud, like mentioning her hell-ride at the start of the invasion would pull her back from the depths of its end. “I liked that bike, too.”[break][break]

And her insurance was still being slow with processing her claim.[break][break]

She pulled her mental leash tighter, like she was pulling at the very cords that composed the towering Xurkitree; twitching, coiled, and keen.[break][break]

“But, that's the least of the losses.” History would remember it fonder than Mossdeep, but her mind was still refusing to accept it. It still felt half-won. Half-finished.[break][break]

“Good on you for partaking in that,” but, her recollection of the event was incomplete, because she still failed to place his face.[break][break]

“What's your name?” So she could commit something to memory.

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[attr="class","euterpetag"]Cillian Quinn

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. . .

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the Harbinger

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october 28th

circhester, galar

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TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 10:25:57 GMT

Bailey Cooper likes this

"Ate it," he wonders, "like it ate that supply van?"

It's surreal to think that if he'd lingered in the van for moments longer, he might've wound up in Guzzlord's stomach. It had vanished into the chasm of the Ultra Beasts maw and hadn't come back out, not even after they'd put the creature down.

"Better to fight than to die hiding," he shrugs. He'd never fancied himself a coward. When asked for a name, he answers, "Patrick."

If he were to give her an alias that didn't exist, she might find this one through the likes of Kyle or Lucas instead. Better to be safe.

[break]
Bailey Cooper

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POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 10:34:35 GMT

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“Nah, nothing so dramatic.”[break][break]

It had plummeted with the collapse of the cycling road. By the time she had found it, it had already been scattered among the rubble and rebar.[break][break]

“I've been in the mouth of one of those things before—I don't recommend it.”[break][break]

Its breath was, somehow, the most poignant part of that memory. Not the blood that had clotted against her face, not the threat of her oncoming demise.[break][break]

But its breath; heavy with a smell of death and metal that could be tasted on the back of her tongue.[break][break]

His next comment would draw a longer pause, a longer silence.[break][break]

“Honestly? Better not to die at all,” and her laugh would be faint, light.

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[attr="class","euterpetag"]Cillian Quinn

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. . .

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thorn

the Harbinger

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october 28th

circhester, galar

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TAG WITH @gavin

POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 10:40:29 GMT

It's the first time Gavin's heard of her encounter at Mossdeep, albeit without the name attached to the incident for reference. His brows disappear beneath his fringe.

"Fuck, for real? That's—"

He can't find the proper word for the existential dread that grips him at the thought of being that close to such a Beast. It had been horrible enough at a distance.

"How did you get out?"

The delicate dance of small talk sheds to real curiosity.

[break]
Bailey Cooper

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rascal

the volatile

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August 15th

lavaridge

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TAG WITH @bailey

POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 10:51:42 GMT

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She wondered if someone could ever overcome that feeling—that gut twister that was mortality.[break][break]

Every hyper beam. Every scar.[break][break]

The Champion knew how she felt when death hung at the outer banks; knew how it felt to be so scared that the brain would threaten itself in its own preservation. Better to be overcome by inner-shock than to experience the end in full, right?[break][break]

Or, in her case, to recall it in an injection of a vivid syringe that dictated her to move; to course with something unknown as she fell into a twisting, nauseating dance.[break][break]

“Someone helped me.”[break][break]

A pause.[break][break]

“They didn't make it.”[break][break]

But that death bathed her in the energy of V-Create, and she spared a sad smile to its memory.

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[attr="class","euterpetag"]Cillian Quinn

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. . .

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thorn

the Harbinger

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circhester, galar

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I want corruption, I think I'm the devil in disguise.

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POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 10:59:13 GMT

There's silence for a moment as Gavin takes in the words. He thinks of Rex Drago; how would he have felt if the eager Rocket had given his life in his haste to rescue his allies from the van? The escape had been a close one.

Her sad smile is matched by a sympathetic grimace. They were enemies, even if she didn't know it, but Gavin could admit to some respect for the hot-headed Champion in that moment. She'd fought a lot of battles for a world that could be thankless in the way it continued to take and take.

He's not one to apologise for something he had no hand in, not even as a reflex.

What he does say: "That fucking sucks."

[break]
Bailey Cooper

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lavaridge

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POSTED ON Nov 7, 2020 21:07:48 GMT

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It does fucking suck.[break][break]

But, that was not all that there was to the story. “Nothing to be done about it now.”[break][break]

Her gaze flickered back to the war memorial, noting how one of the votives had lost its flame, creasing and folding with its thin strip of smoke.[break][break]

Her hand would scoop an adjacent candle, borrowing its flame to tilt to the wick.[break][break]

“Just gotta appreciate what's still there, I guess?” And she was aware of how the conversation had turned, and the layers it threatened to strip.[break][break]

“But, that's all you can do when everything's said and done. Maybe, someone can learn something from it,” and she would shrug as she'd stack the glass back to its row.[break][break]

“Whatever that means.”

[attr="class","euterpeline"]

[attr="class","euterpetag"]Cillian Quinn

[attr="class","euterpenotes"]

. . .

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thorn

the Harbinger

he/him

october 28th

circhester, galar

demisexual

underboss

the harbinger

6'3" height

I want corruption, I think I'm the devil in disguise.

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TAG WITH @gavin