She’s passed the point of exhaustion. Right now the professor runs on pure adrenaline and relentless persistence. They appear back within the safety of her lab in the bright flash of a TELEPORT. She breathed deeply, her arm hanging over the shoulder of the also struggling Gallade. She limps over to take a seat against the wall beside an exam table, a hand motioning towards the other side of the lab, “Over there, the pain meds,” she requests between heavy breaths. She’d take herself to a hospital after she takes care of her pokemon.

One of the few pokemon left to hold down the fort waddled over to the drawer and brings her a vial and syringe, “Blade, on the table - now,” too weak to put up a fight, the Gallade obliges, lying down to let her place her gentle hands on the large laceration torn across his torso, “Relax,” but he can’t, not when pain, anger, and fear plague him.

It fades as she injects the opioid, his vision blurs, and peace numbs the pain. Eva leans against the table herself, wiping the blood and sweat from her forehead, “Apply the salve . . . to the wound . . . let it sit . . . when flush it,” The Audino nods, gathering materials as she limps back over to the bag Blade dropped. He wasn’t the only pokemon in need of medical attention.

She assumed she was alone, but the rustle of footsteps tells her otherwise, “Illie?” she calls out, but it wasn’t Illeana and rounded the corner - it was him.

“YOU?!” she accused in surprise and anger. She nearly falls to the floor but braces herself to stay upright, “Stop him!” Most of her pokemon are still at the frontlines, helping heal the wounded. The ones on her belt are spent and her avatar powers have also been exhausted. A small Pachirisu that was sleeping in her office answered the call. It bounded out into the lab and fired off a THUNDER WAVE at Priam.

---

priam conrad

Electricity crackled uselessly against the Gabite’s hide. Eva grit her teeth in frustration, peering past the dirt and blood smeared bangs that dangled over her eyes but the grotesque veil did little to hide the smoldering anger and resentment sparkling in her emerald eyes. The Pachirisu chirped and scurried away to face the dragon again. The little white hairs on the brave rodent’s back stood up straight. Her teeth chattered in an adorably threatening manner.

“Fuck you, Priam,” she ground out from between clenched teeth. Her weight rested heavily on the nearby stool to steady herself. All she heard were lies, and all she saw was betrayal. It was too familiar. Not too long ago, someone else she trusted betrayed her and his similarly nonchalant attitude came off as condescending. As if everything they had done meant nothing.

His feigned caring fell on deaf ears, but there was no way she was chasing after him either. Adrenaline smothered any logic, she was running on pure, primal fear. Her angry gaze flashed over his wounds. He got off easy.

She sneered, throwing an uncharacteristic, toothy grimace his way, “Why?” was really all she wanted to know. If she couldn’t chase him, couldn’t throw him in prison, she at least deserved some sort of explanation, “How much did you fuck us? How much do they know?”

---

priam conrad

No, she wouldn’t believe him. The wounds were still too fresh. For how strongly she preached forgiveness, she found that concept to be so far gone lately that she forgot what it was like to consider it. Betrayal had become the sharp knife driven into her back. One wound she could survive, but there were too many now. Logic had been overridden by a survival instinct, and that instinct pushed everyone away.

‘Hm,” she grits her teeth, a mind split between numbing the pain of her wounds and her heart, struggles to sort through everything he says. She doesn’t know what to believe anymore, “Is that all it was? Just a taste of normalcy?” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. She can’t even begin to fathom the consequences that would rain down on her after this. A Head Professor with a Rocket spy as a protege. They’d have her head.

---

priam conrad

Eva had been in enough contact with Rocket and their people to know it wasn’t easy to just ‘leave’. There were a number of difficulties that made it nearly impossible. One, they would likely hunt the traitor down and kill them to keep their secrets. In a more metaphorical sense, once you sipped from their POISONED CHALICE it was hard to cure the hatred it instilled in their followers. Still, she says it anyway:

“You can leave . . . you’re strong enough to break free if you wanted,” the question was, did he want to? Or did they already have their claws sunk deep?

---

priam conrad

Eva’s not sure if she’s just delirious from exhaustion or Priam just wasn’t making any sense. Did he really just compare leaving Rocket to leaving a child behind. The ultimatum wasn’t something her mind could process at the moment. All she saw was betrayal and grief.

“It’s not always an ultimatum, Priam.”

She sank to her floor, letting a long sigh hiss through her lips, “Get out . . . before security finds you.”

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priam conrad