this could very well be a trap. it could be the end of her, but she found, when mulling the offer over, that she hadn't quite minded that. her legacy would continue; that amorphous creature would see to it. and she thinks of this, of creation and death, as she takes a long drag and plumes smoke from her nose. 

the nicotine hits as the smoke runs its course. she and merlino's careers had been passing ships. back when she had a rocket-funded lab, she made it a point to know just about everyone of significance in the organization. he was on her radar - an up and comer with a keen mind. but like with most men, she ignored him. or at the very least, worked quite hard to avoid him. 

he steps from the trees now. she ashes her cig and raises it back to her lips, calms cupped under her chin. her lions analyze him just as she does - though their gazes are hungrier. 

"anya," she says in return, voice a purr. no sense tying molly to the rocket boss, but again, she has a feeling the days on her alias are numbered. 

"i can't say the same," she says as she stubs out her cig on the bark of her tree. she crosses her arms. "tell me - why is it that my research has taken the interest of not one, but two of your organization's most important people?"

surely, by now, they've moved on to bigger, better things. 

she certainly has. 

Cillian Quinn

☉

or, perhaps, they haven't. she regards the man with a new kind of apprehension. she would never go insofar to say that the project was a waste of time. after all, it paved the way for the creation of project parasite. without those building blocks, the code for rewiring & rewriting, it wouldn't be here. 

she flicks the stunted bud from her fingers and tilts her head at him. oh? 

his attempt at assuaging her concerns is unnecessary. when she'd defected, she'd still been under cadis' jurisdiction. the rise of walsh had come soon after. no time like political instability to slink into the shadows and never resurface. 

mm, evidently she hasn't done a very good job of doing the latter.

she slouches to the side and sighs. "your point, darling? your point? so what if the world is burning? the world's always been burning. we're a species running on borrowed time." 

Cillian Quinn

☉

she's a smart woman, but her achilles' heel is her tunnel vision. when she fled from this region, tail tucked between her legs, hiding away in snowpoint and making a living off of her paintings, well, she cared little for the news. the constant reminders of her cowardice, but more than that - what waited for her for her defection - left her leaving hoenn shut in a lockbox at the back of her mind. 

and upon her return, she sought to pick up where she left off. she'd dusted off her old research, but never bothered to scour that something new. 

and just as quickly was her world rocked yet again. there's more out there. 

so why does this keep haunting her? 

she's clever enough to put together the implications. she raises a brow. "i've taken to a quiet life, so excuse me if i'm not up to speed, but are you suggesting that you are an avatar of a shadow?" curiosity finally sparks in those otherwise placid blue eyes of hers. 

"synthetic or naturally occurring?" are you another of mine?

Cillian Quinn

☉

there is a tad bit of disappointment there, but not much. after all, she's never been after claiming credit for her work (and yet credit seems to follow her anyway). out of context, his cryptic information doesn't mean much to her. after all, she's been out of the loop with rocket's endeavors for quite a while now.

no longer consent to being studied. hardly. even observing her will give anya crucial information she'll - do what with exactly? her mind is turning, flitting back and forth with the wealth of knowledge presented before her. and yet there is a line in the sand she cannot cross. a man she's pledged herself to.

but she can toe the line. 

the sandslash is close when it's released, but she does not startle at its feral appearance. she tilts her head, looking slowly from trainer and pokemon. "hmm. three?" unfortunate. the process with the first had been...messy, but she'd thought she and cadis had hammered out the rest of the details before...

"they're unreliable. perhaps not under one in your specific," she waves her hands, grasping, "situation. but the project disbanded for a reason. they're too...volatile. turns out uninhibited aggression does not make for good warriors." she smirks. "but violence? terror?

"is this what you're after, merlino? because competing against the region itself in that department is a losing battle."

Cillian Quinn

☉

it gives her some twisted pleasure to know that without her, the serum's been bastardized. but it also surprises her. she'd had more faith in lulu during their meeting. perhaps that's her bias talking - the women who've had to claw their way through academia typically prove more capable than their peers. 

but why? she thinks. why control something that does not desire it? she looks down, reaching again into her back pocket to grab another smoke. briefly, she offers the carton to him, and then lights up, still analyzing the beast that sits between them. 

he may be able to control them. that's a lot of power in the hands of someone who boasts his own collection. as far as she's concerned, mesmerizing an army of shadow pokemon will do little in the face of a meteor. the countdown's begun and everything else is trivial. 

her mind wanders. will my son be strong enough to escape it?

she laughs, a rattling smoker's laugh. "mm, i see my corruption took." of course, she'd broken the files before fleeing. through an artist's work, there was a chance she could be found. 

she flicks ash. "i can restore them. i kept a backup of every file." her grin is sly. "encrypted, of course, so you can't have this little one end this here and collect it yourself.

"but i ask - to what end? i'm flattered you've taken to the monsters, but surely you want more than to stick them in a proverbial gallery."

Cillian Quinn

☉

her nonplussed look is a constant, but even she reacts to the theatrics gavin puts on before her. notes scribble themselves fervently in her mind, fingers pinching around the cig, wishing she could trade it for pen and paper. ah. her recent research has been all-consuming until it...hasn't. 

and with fernando gone who knows where (a space-time distortion, though she's no idea), she's had little to satisfy her scientific inclinations. her previous projects lay abandoned in their cages, starved or mauled by her lions, because what else could she do that has any significance?

she tilts her head at the question, cig rolling in her lips. smoke curls and the sandslash shifts with frustration. 

"it's all anyone wants these days," she says with a sigh, deflecting. 

"peace of mind," she answers. "immunity for my defection." she shrugs. "a small price to pay to get your little shop of horrors working."

Cillian Quinn

☉