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YOU'RE ALL THAT I SEE

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[attr="class","freiwantmid"]CHARACTER FACTION team rocket

[attr="class","freiwantmid"]CHARACTER RANK grunt

[attr="class","freiwantmid"]FACE CLAIM Tanya Akulova from Darker than Black

[attr="class","freiwanttop"]ABOUT THE CHARACTER

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To understand Akilina's past, an overview of her parent's past will provide better understanding. Akilina's parents met when were both employees of the Devon corporation, which is one of the most prominent companies in Rustboro city, though far from the only one. Her father, Jack Volkov, worked at one of the main factories as a Quality Production Technician. Akilina's mother, Samara Balakin, had been with the company for years and had slowly worked her way up in rank until she got an unexpected promotion to Division Manager. It was a huge responsibility, and she couldn't believe it when happened. Samara's skills and abilities were tested to the limit, but she was able to live up to the expectations set out for her by the head honchos of the Devon Corporation. Both of her parents lives were on track at that point. They had high paying salaries, company benefits, and they were what the general public might consider to be successful. Her parents met during regular company board meetings, and at first it was all business. Things changed when they went to an after-work birthday party for a mutual friend of theirs, who was also a fellow co-worker by the name of Janet. Samara didn't allow herself to let loose often but she had that weekend off and decided it would be okay to have a few drinks.
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The stress of all the new responsibilities had really been getting to her. It was probably the worst idea she could have had. Since most of the people there were low-ranked fellow co-workers, they kept trying to suck up to her by buying her drinks. Jack bought her a couple glasses himself, though he was hardly the only one. It ended up being a pretty wild party where most of the people there ended up three sheets to the wind. You can probably guess what happened. It was like something out of a movie but it did happen. Samara woke up the next day in Jack's apartment, in his bed. While they had been eyeing eachother during boardroom meetings, neither had planned to do anything about it. Unfortunately, they had ended up acting on that mutual attraction due to the sheer amount of alcohol loosening inhibitions. While Samara wanted to leave, she knew she couldn't without talking to Jack. She was in a complete and total panic. Jack was a gentleman about it. He brought her a cup of strong coffee and asked him to join him at his small kitchen table. They needed to talk. The problem was that the company had a policy against co-workers dating for obvious reasons.
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It was even worse because Samara was Jack's superior in rank. If their employer found out about it, both of them faced immediate termination from their jobs. Over a couple cups of coffee, Samara managed to calm down and come to an agreement with Jack. They would go back to work, act as though nothing had happened, and they would never speak of it again. It didn't work out so well. Things became awkward between them and their fellow co-workers picked up on the tension and akwardness when they were in the same room together. However, most assumed they'd gotten into some kind of argument. The never of their agreement turned out to be about two weeks. Neither of them could stop thinking about what had happened between them and started texting back and forth. They changed their minds about their former agreement, and decided to unofficially date outside of work and to try to keep it a secret. They only met at work when strictly necessary and avoided eachother at work when they could, throwing everyone off by enforcing the idea they'd had some sort of disagreement.
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Six weeks later, it looked like it was going to work out for them. The company had started a couple big projects, and those projects kept both of them so busy that neither of them really had any time to talk at work aside from the regular board meetings. Unfortunately, Samara started feeling nauseous and found it hard to keep her breakfast down, and her periods had stopped too. She knew the signs of pregnancy but couldn't believe that's what it was and just thought she had come down with a stomach bug. When she started throwing up a week later, she bought a home pregnancy test and it came back positive. She booked a day off for a doctor appointment and went, and it was confirmed. She sent a text telling Jack they needed to talk, and that's when she broke the news to him. Jack somehow managed to seem terrified and ecstatic all at once. They talked long into the night about what their next move was, because there was no way she was going to be able to hide her pregnancy at work, and everyone would be asking questions if she never introduced the father. It would only be a matter of time before they would be found out. A few days later, both tendered their resignations at the same time. They felt they both had enough work experience to find other jobs and leaving voluntarily would look better on their records than a termination for violating company policy. There was a huge management shuffle to fill the void Samara left. She was only Division Manager for about two months, so it didn't take too long for them to find a suitable replacement.
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Fast forward almost a year later, and Samara gave birth to a healthy baby girl that she named Akilina. Her parents were renting a condo together by then and were engaged to be married. As it turned out, Devon Corp was such a large company that they had managed to drive out a lot of the competition. Both of her parents had been unable to find jobs that were as high paying or as lucrative. Samara ended up working as a Night shift manager at a warehouse company, and Jack was able to find a job as a Packaging Quality Technician at a pharmaceutical company. They were making considerably less than they were before but the jobs were still enough to afford them a comfortable lifestyle. In the years that followed Akilina's birth, two more children were added to the family. Her brothers were named Maksim and and Ivan. The condo soon became cramped, so their parents made the call to rent a cheap three-bedroom house in a seedy part of the city.
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Her parents were both working overtime to support their family, and that meant neither of them were home lots. Their mistake was hiring local babysitters from around the neighborhood. They were overworked, overtired, and stressed when they made the decision to let an irresponsible teenage girl look after their kids for the evening. Akilina was relatively well-behaved, but her brothers were...well they got into things a lot. The teenager spent more time texting her boyfriend on her cell than paying attention to her brothers. Big mistake. The youngest brother, Ivan, got the idea to have a little fun by burning little bits of paper by turning on one of the oven burners. He was careful not to burn his fingers, but a small still-burning piece of paper drifted away from the oven and landed in the nearby trash bin...which was filled with shredded documents. Two things happened. The waste bin went up in flames and scared the boys so much that they ran away screaming. The resulting smoke set off the fire alarm. The babysitter couldn't ignore it and ran into the kitchen to see what they had done, and found the trash bin on fire, which had already spread up the side of the counter. Thankfully the front door was on the opposite side, closer to the living room. The babysitter gathered the scared kids, ushered them out the door and onto the sidewalk of the street, and used the cell phone she'd been using to chat with her boyfriend to call the fire department. The fire department was quick to respond, and some nearby trainers that had seen the smoke helped out too. A plethora of water pokemon were able to put out the fire. The kitchen was a total loss, but the quick response time and the help from the trainers on the street had made a difference. The house had been saved from burning down entirely and affecting other nearby houses.
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The Volkovs were furious with the baby sitter but Jack insisted on paying her anyway, because she had managed to get their kids out safely. However, the whole incident cost them bigtime. Thankfully the homeowner had homeowner's insurance, which meant that they weren't going to have to pay out of pocket for renovations to restore the kitchen. They still needed to pay for hotel rooms while the renovations were ongoing because the kitchen was a safety hazard. Samara made a drastic choice for the sake of her children and quit her job to be a stay-at-home Mom. It meant they would be living off of Jack's salary only, but Samara did not trust anyone to babysit her kids after that. She blamed herself for not being home often enough and she was not going to let their lives be put in danger like that again. Things only went downhill after that. Samara had hoped her husband would be promoted, and it seemed like he had been on track for that to happen...but he got passed over in favor of the big boss's nephew. On top of that, Samara found out she was pregnant again a few months after the house fire incident. Nine months later when she did give birth, it was to a pair of fraternal twins. One boy and one girl. Samara named them Anastasia and Leonid. Samara and Jack had no choice but to find another home to rent to accommodate thier expanding family.
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Akilina didn't like their new house very much. While it was bigger, the rooms were narrow and the only place she could get away from her siblings was her room. Meal times were a noisy chaotic affair, and she didn't get much one-on-one time with her parents. She started spending more time at her friend's house in order to get away from the crowded conditions. She had met Hannah at school and found out the girl lived just down the street from her, so it was certainly convenient for both of them. They were best friends by the time they started high school together. She made a few other friends with other teens her age in the area, and most of their parents would let her stay over if she needed to get away from her family. Why did she need to stay away from home so often other than overcrowding? Well over the years her parents relationship had soured. Samara was stressed from looking after the children all day without help, and Jack was exhausted from putting in as many hours as he could at work to support his family. It put them at eachother's throat, and they ended up getting into some spectacular shouting matches. Then one day, after working two back-to-back shifts in a row, Jack just snapped. Samara had gotten up in his face and said something insulting, and the next thing he knew, he raised his hand and backhanded across her left cheek. She was sent careening down onto the couch, and with a horrified look on his face, Jack grabbed his coat and left.
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Akilina was over at her friend's house when it happened, and the texts her mother sent her informed her in no uncertain terms not to come home. Samara was filing for divorce as soon as she could, and it was over between her and Jack. Her mom asked if she wanted to stay with her grandmother with the rest of her siblings until she found a new place for them all to live. She said she'd need enough time to get a job again, so it might be a while. Akilina asked Hannah's parents if she could stay there, since she had pretty much become a regular at their home anyway. Hannah's parents didn't mind, because she was practically a member of the family. While she seemed outwardly calm about the news, inwardly she was furious with them both her parents but there wasn't anything she could do about it. Her dad had crossed a line and she didn't have a really close relationship with him anyway. He had been absent or busy for the majority of her life. Akilina was grateful to have somewhere to stay at least. The whole situation affected her ability to concentrate in class, and he grades dipped considerably. It was looking like she might not even be able to graduate at the rate her grades were dropping.
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One day Akilina left one of her classes with another failing report card. She had failed an important exam, but her professor had been kind enough to give her another chance with a re-take. She only had one final chance though, and if she failed that chance she would have to re-take the class the following year. Hannah had already helped her study for the exam the first time but hadn't really been a big help. Probably because Hannah only put in enough effort to get by on average grades, but it was still better than she could do. Akilina was still musing about her grades when one of her fellow classmates called out her name. It was Luis Reyes, a quiet student who didn't have many friends but who was also one of the top scoring students in the class. She stopped and waited for him to catch up, and he quite bluntly told her he had been sitting close enough to overhear what the professor had said. He made her an offer she couldn't refuse, which was to help her study for the exam. She asked him why he would go out of his way to do that, and he told her he felt sorry for her. Akilina didn't like being pitied but she knew she couldn't turn down the opportunity. She needed to graduate so she could at least get a low-end job to support herself, since she knew she probably couldn't stay at Hannah's place forever. They started to study at the school library. The professor has generally given her a week to prepare for the re-take. It went surprisingly well, Luis seemed to know where to find the most important blurbs in the text-book and he had taken meticulous notes and let her use them. He would give her small quizzes to test her and while she wasn't getting perfect on most of them, she was doing between 75-85%.
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On the fifth day in, they ran into a snag. They had been meeting at the school library to study, but the library temporarily closed down for renovations. It was being expanded, which meant there was ongoing construction and it wouldn't be open for a while. They tried working together at the school lunchroom but it was impossible to concentrate with all the noise. Luis suggested meeting at her place after school to study, but Akilina explained she was staying with a friend and it was crowded as it was. Akilina countered by suggesting maybe they go to his place to study instead? She was surprised by the alarmed look on Luis's face before he shook his head and told her it wasn't a good idea. Akilina was about to asked why but he really didn't seem to want to talk about it and he was her only hope for passing the exam, so she decided to err on the side of caution and didn't press the issue. She suggested they look around the school for other spots instead. The bad luck streak continued, and when they tried to outdoor quadrangle, they got rained out. They found an empty classroom after that, which worked for all of 20 minutes before a professor they didn't know came in, asked them to leave, and told them it was being used to give their students detention. Akilina and Luis left, and Akilina almost gave up and thanked him for helping her study as much as he had. He stopped and after much hand-wringing, told her he'd text her his address after school. She could meet him there to study after all. Akilina agreed and told him she would be there.
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She wasn't sure what to expect, but after school he was as good as his word and the text of his address appeared on her phone. It was on the east end of town, a small residential area where the houses were crowded close together, with narrow strips of grass in front of them. She found his house, which was the second last one on the street. It looked exactly like the rest of the houses on the street, which made it seem pretty ordinary. She knocked on his door and wasn't sure what to expect, but he answered it promptly and let her into the house. She thought she would meet his parents at that point, but there was nobody home but Luis. When she asked where his folks were, he gave her a nervous look and told her they were away at work. Something was definitely up but Akilina didn't press it since he had been hesitant to allow her over in the first place. They settled down at the kitchen table and got down to studying. The inside of the place didn't look much different than where she had used to live. Two hours passed and they were making good progress...until the front door opened of seemingly its own accord. A woman in her mid-forties with cinnamon brown should-length hair stepped into the room. It was Tessara, Luis's mom, and she seemed shocked to find someone other than Luis in her home. Luis had gone as white as ghost and exclaimed that he hadn't expected her to be home for several hours. That's when Luis's dad Adriano walked through the door behind Tessara. Both of them seemed nonplussed about finding Akilina there, and she quickly realized he had probably invited her without their permission.
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Akilina thought it was quite odd but it made sense if his parents didn't allow visitors over. She stepped up at that point and explained that Luis had offered to help her study. The textbooks sprawled open on the kitchen table made it clear she was telling the truth. She thanked Luis for letting her study there and stammered an excuse that she should probably go home. Tessara and Adriano exchanged a bemused look, and Tessara told her it was fine if they wanted to study longer. Adriano did shoot a stern look at Luis and told them they would talk later. Akilina figured he was probably in trouble and decided she would apologize later. She did need more study time but there was still a couple days left. She said she really should be going and left. The next day, she asked Luis how it went with his parents and he told her that they had talked and it was fine. She could even come over again after school if she wanted. Akilina wasn't sure she should, but with the exam re-take looming over her head she knew she needed all the help she could get. So after school she went over to Luis's place again and was surprised to find his parents weren't home again. However, he did have a small companion in the form of a Buneary. He told her that the pokemon belonged to his mom. The Buneary was just there to keep an eye on them. They got down to studying and the Buneary remained very quiet and unobtrusive. The final day of studying came and Luis took her through all the notes and content they had covered, and came up with a couple tests that were more involved than the quizzes. She got 92% on one and 89% on the other, which was better than she had done in a long time.
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All of the studying with Luis ultimately paid off. She managed to pull off the re-take of her exam with a 86%. There had been some trick questions that lowered her score, but it was good still enough to save her grade in that course. She was grateful to Luis and credited him with saving her from having to redo not just the course but being stuck another year in high school. They became pretty good friends after that. Akilina still managed to graduate high school but she barely met the requirements to do so, even with all of Luis's help. Her chances of getting into a good College were abysmally low. She told Luis as much a few weeks after the graduation, and to her surprise, he invited her over to have dinner at his place with his folks. He told her that his parents wanted to have a talk with her. Akilina thought that was very weird, but she agreed to come over for dinner.
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Akilina walked in through the front door of Luis's home and he told her to close the door quickly and come take a seat at the table. As she approached the table she could see that Luis was sitting at the table with his parents. However, something was different. They were all wearing uniforms....Team Rocket uniforms. Before she could back herself out the door, an Umbreon slid between Akilina and the exit. Everything made sense at that point. The evasiveness, the reason why Luis had been nervous about having her over....they were all members of Team Rocket. She couldn't believe it. Luis had been so nice to her and done everything he could to help her, and yet the Luis that she saw in front of her looked totally at ease in his rocket grunt uniform. Luis had a bundle of clothing in front of him on the table, and he pushed out out across the table so she could see. She was shocked to see it was a rocket uniform as well, just folded up in a neat package. Tessara stood up and told her to take a seat, and Akilina complied.
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"You look shocked, but I'm not surprised. I'm sure you must feel overwhelmed right now. Relax. Our son told us all about your situation and we have a proposition for you. From what I understand, you do not have very good career prospects and you're in a tight spot as far as a living situation. Now listen closely, as this might be your only opportunity. Our proposition is mutually beneficial. Join our organization, and we can supply you with a small studio apartment and all the pokemon necessary to complete the tasks we have for you. You will be expected to be obedient, discreet, and your loyalty will be tested. My husband and I will give you the majority of your assignments but you might be called on by other members of our organization. Obedience and efficiency are priority. Our son believes you are more talented than your grades let on, and our organization is recruiting at the moment. It's a you scratch our back and we'll scratch yours kind of deal. You can walk away. However, you will never be allowed to interact with our son again, and there will be grave consequences if you tell anyone about this. Now, you have until tomorrow morning to decide. Come back here if you agree to join, and if you don't show, we'll assume you've declined and expect to never see you again. Have I made myself clear?"
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Akilina nodded meekly, and they took back the uniform for safekeeping. The Umbreon moved away from the door it had been blocking and Akilina was permitted to go home. Hannah's parents greeted her when she got there, but said Hannah was out on a date with her boyfriend. They asked her if she was okay, because she was looking rather pale. Akilina told them she was fine and had had a long day of job searching. That's when Hannah's mom dropped some news that made the rock and a hard place she was in all the tighter. Hannah's mom was pregnant and was expecting a baby girl. Akilina was happy for them but she knew what it meant. She probably had nine months to find a new place because they were going to want to convert the spare room she was using into the baby's room. Hannah's mom didn't say as much but Akilina figured that's probably what the deal was She really was genuinely happy for Hannah's mom though and congratulated them on a new addition to the family. No doubt Hannah's mom was trying to wait to bring it up until she was further along. She chatted with Hannah's mom a little bit longer and then retreated to her room to think. She did not mention anything about the surprise proposition from Luis's parents.
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She got no sleep that night as she mulled over the choices. No doubt she'd end up in some dead-end job that she hated if she turned down the offer, and that idea didn't really appeal to her. Team Rocket's offer to her was tempting. She had no idea how highly Luis's parents were ranked in the organization, but they had the authority to recruit obviously. She never thought something like this would ever happen to her. Having her own little apartment would be nice, even if it was just a studio. It would be her first time living on her own and the thought of that independence was exciting to her. The downside was that she was getting mixed up with a pretty dangerous organization, and she fully believed they would make good on their threat if she turned Luis and his parents in. Still, they had given her a proposal that seemed too good to pass up, and it would neatly solve a lot of her current issues. So, the next day came and she told Hannah's parents she was going out job hunting again. However, instead, she walked her way over to Luis's house and they were all waiting for her. Tessara told her she had made the right decision and handed her the uniform that had shown her before. She changed in their bathroom and when she came back out, they told her it looked good on her.
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They were good on her word and gave her six pokeballs...a full team of pokemon. She knew better than to ask where the pokemon had come from, though she was sorely tempted. It was quite the odd collection. A rattata, a seedot, a turtwig, a wimpod, and magikarp, and a scyther. Tessara explained that the organization wanted Akilina to train those pokemon to their maximum potential, so that they would be of more use. Akilina was also encouraged to get more pokemon, though they didn't tell her how to go about it, so she assumed it was up to her. She was given an apartment key and a slip of paper with the address of her new studio apartment. They told her she could stay there as long as she needed, as long as she remained with the organization. If she decided to leave, she would forfeit the right to use the apartment. A couple weeks later, she broke the news to Hannah and her parents that she had found a job as a door-to-door Cosmetics Saleswoman, and that in a month she would be able to afford her own place and move out.
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Hannah took the news the hardest, since they were like sisters at that point. Hannah's parents put on a show of being sorry to see her go, but Akilina could tell they were relieved, probably because they wouldn't have to ask her to leave themselves just before the baby was born. She wasn't sure what life as a grunt of Team Rocket was going to hold, but it seemed better than the alternatives. Her luck seemed to be going up and it looked the same for her parents as well. Her mom had managed to secure a job at a recycling plant, and some of her siblings had moved out of their grandma's place. Akilina didn't know what her dad was up to but she didn't care anymore, since she'd had nothing to do with him after her mother divorced him. As for her...life as a rocket Grunt didn't seem so bad. It was possible she might end up regretting her decision, but for now she was learning and adjusting.