[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]the echoing screech overhead is grating on the ears. it coerces hair into standing up along the arms, goosebumps to rise over skin.

and as her head snaps up to see a familiar creature, she feels her heart lurch into her throat.

no... nononononono.

a look of panic rises and she takes a few stumbling steps back, directly into the heat wave.

the burning sensation comes quickly, painfully. a shriek escapes.

and in her panic, she releases two pokemon. a flygon and a hatterene join her quickly, the former already snarling.

"go."

while the hatterene offers a heal pulse to join her healing mist as she tries to overwrite the burns blooming across skin, her flygon soars upward to meet the nagandel head on with dragon rush.

and she can't help the way her eyes stray, scanning the area for a familiar face.

she expects to find him soon, this man that had taken her and shackled limbs to a cell.

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]what little relief had come with healing moves now recedes like the tide.

and she feels the pain creep back in, overwhelming at first until it dulls out as the nervous system grows accustomed. it is not the worst she has felt. that is still to come, she expects.

"no."

overhead, her flygon is knocked off course by the dragon pulse. it is deterred for a mere moment. the green dragon swoops back around, utilizing its boomburst in an attempt to disorient the naganadel long enough for teeth to find purchase in purple hide.

and on the ground, illeana reaches for the shadows at her feet. from them, she tugs a shiny honedge up. it gleams in the sunlight, blade sharp. the torn sash wraps itself around her wrist and hums loudly.

the eerie sound calls for blood. will it be his or hers?

"i'm never surrendering to you."

he'll have to kill her.

her eyes dart back toward the rift, toward where the last expedition team of the league's had entered. she hopes -- no, prays -- they'll return soon.

and as the dragons fight overhead, she lurches forward to swing her honedge at his side while her hatterene focuses on the bronzong with brutal swing.

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]without the cushion of her healing mist, she has nothing to combat the onslaught of pain.

it starts with a wailing sort of sound from above. her flygon has to back off as sludge wave sticks to its body in purple goo of searing toxins. the dragon darts around in the air, struggling to fling off each toxic bubble on its body. it doesn't find as much success as it hopes.

and in retaliation, the flygon goes for the naganadel's throat with dragon claw.

on the ground, illeana and her hatterene don't fair much better...

each swing of her honedge finds no purchase. his banette sweeps up from shadows to stop the blade. and when her eyes try to follow his movements, try to figure out a way out, she ends up in the crossfire of will-o-wisp.

it burns, she realizes slowly. it fucking burns.

she lets out a sharp hiss of pain as skin begins to singe beneath eerie blue flame. each step she tries to take around the banette ends with another ball of fire, another burn.

"coward."

her expression twists with wincing anger.

"stop hiding behind your pokemon."

letting them do the dirty work... using them as tools... isn't she, in the end, doing the same?

her final pokemon comes with a vengeance. a golurk rises behind her as her hatterene tries to dodge the flash cannon. the fairy type doesn't get very far. it lets out a banshee's wail as the bright beam pierces through one of its tentacle's claws. blood drips and the distraction drags illeana's eyes away. they widen like saucers, horrified.

and her mist still won't come. she keeps trying to pull it out, keeps trying to will it to rise. it never does.

her golurk takes the opportunity to utilize phantom force, slipping beneath the banette and bronzong to swing at theo directly.

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]she snarls.

"no, you didn't!"

face to face with him here and now, she feels a sense of false success. the tides are changing. blood drips from his arm. she swears it's in her favor. she'd even swear it on her grave...

but that's the funny thing about tides, isn't it? they always give you false security before dragging you beneath the undertow.

and she'll drown here.

"you put me in fucking chains."

she swings again, honedge humming louder as if nourished by her rage. behind her, the sickening crack of thunder sounds.

and as psychic sweeps her up into the air, she twists to see her hatterene collapse in a bloodied heap. the smell of electrically burned flesh is nauseating. she gags, bile and tears coming all at once.

she crumbles into the ground in a heap, nothing more than a ragdoll for him to toss around at his sick leisure.

still, she calls for pink mist. and still, it does not answer her prayers.

her golurk stands tall above her, more protector than battering ram. it fires off shadow ball after shadow ball in theo's direction, trying to provide enough cover for the head scientist to drag herself up off the ground.

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]he didn't.

he couldn't.

he wouldn't.

the memory is sharp, struck against whetstone until it's a knife. she remembers the blurring of faces, too many to categorize as visitors or jailors or saviors. some masks, some unhidden, all observers on the outside of a cage.

"you're lying."

he didn't.

she remembers... doesn't she?

hesitation bleeds into the mind, seeds sowed becoming overgrown.

and in her lull, he approaches. she becomes that same broken girl on that cold floor, chained and caged and poked and prodded. nothing more than a cornered animal in too small of an enclosure to find any enrichment beneath suffering.

"that reason isn't because of you."

Felix Gallagher. his face comes into memory as easily as breathing. her mind quiets. her limbs move.

she takes a few quick steps away from theo, eyes once dim now relighting with a spark of awareness. the honedge in her grasp hums louder. she believes it a warning.

execute.

she ducks, then, as her golurk comes back into the visual field. it leaps up from shadows and looks to knock theo or his pokemon off course.

THEO BECKETT

[attr="class","illeana"]

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

[attr="class","illeana i"]seeds of doubt fester and grow like ivy over the brick walls of an abandoned home. they take root, coiled up around her until reason gives way to thoughts she had never wanted to entertain.

and in truth, she has conjured up the idea once or twice. how Felix Gallagher knew where she was, how he managed to get in undetected and steal her away from shackles...

once she had learned of his affiliation, the question had died out.

now, it's back with a vengeance.

had he been working with THEO BECKETT all along? had it been the goal from the beginning to solidify her trust in him by allowing felix to get her out?

"no, i haven't."

a lie. her expression says it all.

he begins to circle and her golurk pounds heavy clay fists against protective barriers. it is futile, much like her avoidance of the truth.

"i don't believe you and i never will."

for her own sanity, for her own security, she can't.

paranoia grows in places she doesn't realize, in places untouched and unnoticed. it spreads and seeps into everything until she's poisoned down to the bone.

she swings her honedge at him when he veers too close, when he's within distance. she looks for blood, for pain. unfortunately, she's looking at the wrong person for such a thing.

THEO BECKETT