[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]she arrives in meteor falls with a slow approach and an unreadable expression. a discolored automaton looms behind her, one clay hand practically glued to her back to guide her forward.

she might still be alive but fuck, is it painful to move.

the events of mt pyre continue to play in the mind like an endless loop. palkia, father winter, rocket vs league clashing over the primal point... repeat.

she can still see the corpse of father winter splitting in two when she closes her eyes, burned into the retinas until she can't escape it. and palkia's chains of unown, no matter how she tries to erase them, still linger in the background and beg for attention.

worst of all, perhaps, is the battling she endured. her fight against Isaac Merlo leads her here, sure, but it isn't the only one she replays obsessively.

the look on Remiel Calcifet's face when she ripped off his mask persists in haunting her dreams, turning pleasant slumber into nightmares. her healing side still aches when she thinks of him.

it fades for a moment, however, when she catches sight of the familiar mask. good... he's alive. a small sense of relief rises at the thought and she flashes a small, barely there smile.

"you made it out alive, huh?"

after they were separated, their fates had been left up to chance. now, they can reconvene with new information and, for illeana, a newfound purpose.

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]despite herself, despite the eyepatch and the unseen carnage it holds hostage, she begins to bleed a steady healing mist. it does him no good now, in the aftermath, but her body reacts to the sight with the sudden, incessant urge to mend what has been broken.

and if it could work on her own mistakes, perhaps they wouldn't be here. a nice thought but the world isn't wired that way. she isn't wired that way.

"what happened?"

he asks the same of her, then, and steps closer. she flushes a soft pink, matching the color of her own pearly mist. her golurk rumbles low but otherwise doesn't move.

"i'll be fine."

she's always fine. and isn't that the very thing she hates, in a way? plucking herself up off the ground every single time shit hits the fan and forcing herself to stay whole. there's too many pieces left behind now and god, she's so tired of pretending.

"i ran into an ex boyfriend and, uh, turns out he was rocket all along."

she flashes a smile, then, and it's all sharp, glinting teeth.

"i stabbed myself to make sure i got him but i'd do it again if i had to."

that, plus the rib he shattered into pieces and the whole electrocuting her thing, really makes her certain of one simple fact: she'd kill him for what he's done.

of course, it's not that simple. it's never been that simple. there's still a love somewhere buried deep beneath healing injuries and the absolute rage of a scorned woman. she can't deny its existence no matter how hard she'd like to try.

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]the soft tune of understanding rises out of her in the form of a hum.

"war's hell."

she echoes it quietly, almost bitterly, with a puff of pink mist escaping. ain't that the fucking truth.

it's okay to not be okay...

it's an understandable concept, sure, but deep down she knows it isn't possible. she's spent too long in FERNANDO SILPH's shadow to rid herself of the masking. sometimes, it almost feels like armor, molded to every curve of her body to keep her safe.

and she's of no use to hoenn if she's not whole.

she lets the sentiment die in her silence, choosing to focus on the following tease. her silence, perhaps, speaks more than her words can anyway.

"not always."

the grin she flashes is wolfish.

"it's better than smashing his skull in."

briefly, the faces of nameless sea hoennian soldiers rise with the comment. she blinks. they become red splatters of disfigurement. and when she blinks again, they're gone.

her golurk offers him no solace, no answer... only silence.

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]for all intents and purposes, he's seeing a particular version of illeana reyes that could be considered somewhat of a puzzle.

consistency exists in loose terms, lingering in some actions and being ripped apart in others. she's become more of a contradiction than a solid piece on the board. healer yet killer, scientist yet mad woman, league yet not.

and if he asked, perhaps she'd chalk it up to him and not her. he had been kind to her in the midst of it all. she wouldn't dare forget that.

"oh, right."

that.

her smile shifts into something tamer, then, and she looks a little more at ease. less hackles rising up and more purrs vibrating through the body.

"palkia."

yes, the be-not-afraid horse that tried to end their existence.

"i've been trying to find it for months."

and that had been the closest she had come -- might ever come, actually.

she doesn't breathe life into what she wants to. her theory of the drk triad, of the creation trio's involvement stays quiet for the moment. and when she unearths it, it'll sound just as crazy as it did when she confidently proclaimed it to Remiel Calcifet and the heavens.

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]yes, the very one that tried to kill us.

she grins as he supplies information. the experience in the cloud had, perhaps, solidified the budding theory she had been cultivating. as he breathes life into it, here and now, she feels vindicated.

"yeah, i know a little bit about it."

while she wasn't in the present terminal, the whispers of what occurred eventually found their way to her ears. and when they did, they flooded her with righteousness.

"i've been conducting experiments for months."

her grin widens until it threatens to break her face in half.

"the distortions, the barrier... even a trip to spear pillar in sinnoh."

each moment had felt like a failure until she placed them together and stepped back. the pieces managed to fit together enough for her to conjure a theory. from there, the theory held strong, true.

"it started with the spear pillar trip, though. nothing came through with a prayer except for the strongest sense of dread i've ever felt and a simple, echoing statement. we have been abandoned."

she takes isaac on a ferry ride through her thought process then, as if she's charon bringing him to the depths of the damned.

"it could've meant the ruins were abandoned by the gods but i thought the use of we was more purposeful than anything else."

and then...

"the barrier that rose around hoenn after my trip seemed to begin confirming the concept. when attacked, it produced insight into other worlds, as if it was a dimension all on its own."

the final piece had been with the very man she stabbed atop mt pyre.

"i attacked a distortion a little while after the events in the cloud and the distortion had the same exact reaction as the barrier this time when before, it had a pink cyclone-like energy repairing it."

her chin rises, almost as if in triumph.

"the barrier the drk triad placed around hoenn and a distortion's walls reacting the same way meant palkia was being used by them. i paired that with the events of the cloud and the drk triad's goal to eliminate hoenn to come to the simple fact that somewhere at the primal points, they would show with palkia."

in the end, however, it had been more of the right place at the right time.

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]the sparkle in her eyes dulls slightly as her arms cross over her chest.

arceus. drk triad. dialga and palkia. unown.

all vastly different pieces on the board and yet, simultaneously intertwined to the point of no clear way to unravel them.

"if what father winter said is true..."

her tone shifts into a darker territory. the edges ripple with searing anger, almost unbecoming of the head scientist.

"they were not just abandoned by the creator, but forced into submission against their will."

a completely disgusting thought, really. to force the gods to do their dirty work for them... and in the name of their creator, no less? horrific.

"of course, it still begs the question of why drk triad is working so closely with the creator. i haven't quite figured out that part yet, but i have some small ideas."

they're not properly formed. not enough to voice, anyway.

perhaps the saying is true: the hand that gives can also take away. in arceus's case, it would a thousand hands...

and heavy is the head that wears the rightfully earned title. it tilts slightly to the left, as if recalibrating itself to account for the weight of her moniker.

the answer he seeks is, perhaps, simpler than one would think.

"energy."

she flashes a confident smile.

"littleroot was home to the original tree of life a while back. energy like that, even with the tree no longer existing, doesn't just go away so easily. as for mt pyre, the deceased souls could also be an untapped well of energy to utilize."

for what, though, she does not know. not yet.

"i don't believe so. well -- not entirely, anyway. the dome around hoenn had been odd in the sense that it had an opening at the very top. if we had been placed in a pocket dimension outside of space and time by palkia at the drk triad's command, the opening wouldn't have been necessary."

that does breed another question, however.

"which actually makes me wonder... why go through the trouble of manipulating a meteor to end hoenn? if they're truly working with arceus and had corrupted time and space, why would they need the meteor? all three have more than enough power to bring about the end of times."

unless... they needed the meteor, specifically?

Isaac Merlo

[attr="class","illeana"]

[attr="class","illeana b"]

[attr="class","illeana i"]while his doubt is warranted, she finds it unnecessary.

"i believe there's some fact in what they say."

her eyes are sharp, focused.

"otherwise, why would they put so much effort and resources into destroying hoenn?"

they wouldn't. she believes in the logic of their actions: there is a necessity to the way they operate against hoenn.

but is it something as simple as the so-called origin point? or something more...?

"it can't be a matter of the last universe standing. otherwise, we wouldn't have others bleeding into our own right now."

they would have been eliminated already, crushed beneath drk triad's crusty boots.

"it's something else, i think... the origin point we haven't fully found yet, i believe."

it's elusive, she'll give them that. there's too many variables and instances to narrow down to one significant circumstance.

she hums, thought processes taking over for a moment. the energy... is it something they require? or is it simply that where they gathered like flies, the drk triad weaved webs to ensnare them for certain defeat?

"it could be less about the energy and more about us, perhaps? they gathered where we were at our strongest and tried to ensure if the meteor didn't destroy us, they did."

it failed but the sentiment still remains. and in a way, she wonders if they're still out there... watching, waiting.

isaac makes a comment, then, and everything seems to click into place. the missing piece, supplied by a man who originally wanted to kick her ass. she startles with newfound life, red eyes shining a little too ferally to be whole.

"that's precisely it!"

arceus can't.

she looks overly excited at the fact and rushes into the explanation without so much as waiting.

"there's an old legend in sinnoh around the creator and its power... how its power had been splintered off into parts and then scattered. i thought it was nothing more than a myth, but what if there's some fact to it?"

her grin is ferocious as it widens. she had seen an odd piece of stone once, in the hands of Remiel Calcifet and utilized to help her endeavors. something about it had seemed primordial, ancient, otherworldly. could it have been a piece of the puzzle?

"that would mean, then... the creator is using the drk triad because it can't destroy hoenn. it doesn't have enough power to do so. not yet, anyway."

there is, of course, always the possibility of that power being found by arceus. and what, then?

Isaac Merlo