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156 cm // 5'1" height

oceans of angels, oceans of stars, down by the sea is where you drown your scars

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POSTED ON Apr 26, 2023 3:52:12 GMT

[attr="class","sambam"]

sumire ♀ - intimidate - crunch / gunk shot / wrap / coil / glare / haze

sakura ♀ - corrosion - flamethrower / venoshock / venom drench / knock off / endeavor / toxic

shion ♀ - poison touch - sludge bomb / outrage / hydro pump / toxic / smokescreen / camouflage

tsutsuji ♀ - infiltrator - air slash / hurricane / boomburst / roost / tailwind / whirlwind

You stand at the edge of the yawning void.

Below lies nothing but black, like staring into the chasm that exists where your heart should be. You wonder just what lies at the bottom, if there is a bottom all the way down there.

Perhaps it goes forever. That would be just as well. You wanna fall forever, there's nothing you'd enjoy more than debasing yourself further, becoming something you hate even more with every passing moment, racing to the bottom of it all.

If there is a rock bottom you haven't hit it yet, but there's still hope. As long as you keep trying.

"Blacker than black..."

You taste the words on your tongue, filled with a bittersweet melancholy.

Deeper, you wanna go deeper. Further into this dream, further into this sea.

"... And yet, not black enough."

Porcelain images of angels dance in the corners of your vision. Whatever calls to you at the bottom makes a convincing point.

Crush yourself under the pressure at the bottom of this ocean and maybe you'll find the redemption you're looking for.

You know it won't be enough. Not truly. You recognize that.

And yet, to join them down there, you feel so tempted all the same.

CLASH 2
+10 MP

Saki Shitachi

[newclass=.sambam] [/newclass][newclass=.sambam b] color: #d49736; [/newclass][newclass=.sambam i] color: #d49736; [/newclass][newclass=.sambam u] text-decoration: none;border-bottom: solid 1px #d49736; [/newclass][newclass=.sambam a] text-transform:uppercase!important;font:800 15px Poppins!important; [/newclass]

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played by

Nemu

She/Her; They/Them

Ecruteak City

Fond of girls

Failure

Grunt

26 height

i used to dream in the dark of palisades park.

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POSTED ON Apr 26, 2023 5:11:06 GMT

"Pitch black and pure white are the same, don't you know?"

A familiarly cheerful giggle echoes throughout the waterless depths. An ethereal sound, so light and directionless that it seems to come from the spirit world.

It doesn't, of course, but perhaps the girl behind it does. Floating above you, the long white sleeves of her kimono splay out in the space of the Ultra Deep Sea, as if they were the wings she'd lost long ago. While only darkness lies beneath, a dim light remains up above, cloaking her in a halo as if she were an angel. Although you know full well that this girl is anything but.

"I finally, finally found you. How long has it been? It feels like lifetime after lifetime. The calendar says just a few weeks, but each and every day felt like decades."

She laughs again, her arms held out to the side as if to slow her descent. Her hair floats upwards to match the sight, giving you a rare look at her right eye, and giving her the chance to meet your gaze with her entire focus.

"While I perished and revived countless times, what did you do with yourself, hm?"

Clash 1

Participation: +50 MP

Post: +10 MP

(Total: 60 MP)

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played by

Nagato

Baki

She/Her

December 21

Saffron City

administrative assistant

Officer

156 cm // 5'1" height

oceans of angels, oceans of stars, down by the sea is where you drown your scars

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993 posts

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TAG WITH @2baki

POSTED ON Apr 26, 2023 17:55:57 GMT

[attr="class","sambam"]

"After all, one cannot exist without the other..."

You whirl around, not surprised to see her in the slightest.

A stain on your memory, on your psyche. It could not be cleansed so easily after all. Even as you steeped your heart in the blackest poison, fell into the abyss, so it would be that she remained. A part of you that you could not burn away, could not excise.

"What have I done?"

You ask as if you yourself do not remember, as if you're asking her the question.

Flickering flames fill your head. Memories you don't care to remember anymore. Death, destruction, a poisoned sea. A helpless girl choked underneath a wave of black sludge, all the gutters overrun with malice, flooding and staining everything in that city with pitch. Coalesced to the very bottom of the underworld. Running to find you there, filling you completely.

You had drowned in it, and were reborn as something else. Something that this girl would scarcely recognize.

"No, that's rhetorical. You know that too, don't you? You've seen the depths of this blackened, rotten heart. You know, just as well as anyone... the sins I carry, the judgement I'm facing. That's why you've come to me as her, isn't it?"

The greatest avatar of guilt conjured from your imagination.

"That face of death, it does not become you."

You smile. Speaking to the thing that wears her image like a mask.

It loves you, heralds the voice of god like an angel. The ruins of a flooded city beneath the sea call to you. Ruins where a pale ghost lingers, who haunts you even now. That is all this is, could ever be. Because this woman is dead.

You have heard what it is called by others in a foreign and ancient tongue, swirling amid this vast expanse in your waking dream. You have seen glimpses of its body at the edges of your vision. And the itches of your skin, hints that it still lurks underneath.

In your language it is called Nihilego.

"Still. You've finally chosen something I can't ignore. I'm sorry, but black and white, they must necessarily fight. Yin and yang. Where they meet, possibility is born."

You reach for your waist, feeling the warmth of the capsule in your hand. It is filled with a fire that longs to burn away the truth, make way for what should be.

"You can see her too, can't you, Sakura?"

Your Salazzle emerges, dripping with a neon venom that scorches glowing-hot streaks into the white, bleached earth. She hisses with acknowledgement, like something quenched in the fire that burns deep inside.

She, too, remembers setting that room ablaze, leaving this woman to her fate.

"Aha... a walking corpse... magnificent."

Tsubaki sent out Sakura (Salazzle)!

CLASH 2
+20 MP

Saki Shitachi

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played by

Nemu

She/Her; They/Them

Ecruteak City

Fond of girls

Failure

Grunt

26 height

i used to dream in the dark of palisades park.

awards

63 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @serendipity

POSTED ON Apr 26, 2023 22:59:58 GMT

"Your sins?" The girl tilts her head. Are those eyes of hers filled with confusion? Does she not understand? Or is that doubt and disbelief, rejecting the truth of your words? "Do you really believe you've done anything wrong? That can't be true, can it?" Her tone of voice doesn't make it any clearer.

With Sakura's arrival, she frowns and bites her lip. This time disappointment and sorrow are clear on her face, with no room for alternate interpretations. After sighing and lowering her head, her mouth twists into a nasty, vulgar smile. False life wells up from within to animate her expression, puppetting her body in a fashion that's almost nostalgic. Seems whatever this is copied that habit, too.

"Well, now you're speaking my language! Yes, yes, let's make all the possibilities in the world together." A sinister chuckle instead of a cutesy giggle, this time. She reaches for one of the Pokeballs on her waist - only two of them, unlike before - but her choice is obvious from the voice she's using, even before she makes it.

At least, it should have been. The beast that emerges lacks the pristine beige fur it - or its genuine counterpart - once possessed, instead a disheveled greying mess with eyes red like blood. You can tell it's already wounded and tired. If this duo has indeed crawled out of hell, it must have been a quite a harrowing journey. All for the sake of seeing you again, or so she's claiming.

Or if the trainer is instead an angel of death in disguise, what accompanies her can only be the grim reaper.

"I'm not the only one to come back, as you can see. But now that all of us are here, let's have some fun like we used to, eh? Maybe that'll knock the truth back into you."

The girl holds her arms out with her palms facing upwards, waiting patiently for you to begin. Hoping you'll prove something by attacking first. Her newly-evolved Pokemon, however, struggles to contain itself, impatiently dragging and stomping its foot against the ground.

Clash 1
Post: +10 MP
(Total: 130 MP)

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played by

Nagato

Baki

She/Her

December 21

Saffron City

administrative assistant

Officer

156 cm // 5'1" height

oceans of angels, oceans of stars, down by the sea is where you drown your scars

awards

993 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @2baki

POSTED ON Apr 28, 2023 5:34:36 GMT

[attr="class","sambam"]

You take off your hat and run your fingers through your hair, at a loss.

"Aha... you're mad... always have been..."

You can't tell whether you're talking to her or yourself. Or if there's much of a difference anymore.

Even in your wildest dreams, you didn't think the version of herself she engraved into your flesh was so vivid. Worse than a bad dream, this is a walking nightmare. She is more than a ghost, more than a memory. This is too real for any of that.

This is you against the void you once called your heart. When everything seemed lost, while you grieved and wandered the streets without direction, she slowly devoured what was left, like a worm infesting forbidden fruit.

She had truly gorged herself on it, hadn't she?

"There's no truth left for you but that you should've died a long, long time ago. Back then, I still thought I could save you. Ohh, how wrong that was..."

You can't look at her with anything but sorrow.

"... but I'm ready to commit even these memories to the flame with the rest of 'em, now."

You hold your hand outstretched, and snap your fingers.

Sakura obliges that signal, opens her maw wide. Venom dripping from her body sets alight in a violet hue, and she engulfs the ghosts in front of her in it.

Cinders that would burn away the past, so you rboth promised one another. Reduce her to ashes that she might never speak again, just as you thought she had. Just as you are sure she had.

A lingering sense of doubt besets you, and you wonder.

Could this place between dreams and reality be a space between life and death?

Sakura (Salazzle) used Flamethrower!

CLASH 2
+30 MP

Saki Shitachi

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played by

Nemu

She/Her; They/Them

Ecruteak City

Fond of girls

Failure

Grunt

26 height

i used to dream in the dark of palisades park.

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63 posts

DOLLARS

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TAG WITH @serendipity

POSTED ON Apr 28, 2023 10:27:36 GMT

"Now now, you're gonna break someone's heart, saying things like that. I wonder whose would end up breaking first though?" She laughs. Not a polite giggle or brief snicker, either. She clutches herself and doubles over, cackling wildly until she struggles to breathe, as if you'd just told the funniest joke of your life.

"Really now... 'should've died'..." She keeps chuckling a little, standing up and wiping a tear from her eye. "That's not funny at all. ...Plus, you know none of us have ever truly been alive, don't you? You know that better than anyone!"

That unshakeable confidence of hers - that confidence you've known so well, that perpetual way of being she had, that straddles the line between sanity and mania, always bordering on suicidal - that confidence shatters, briefly, for an instant. She ducks down and covers her head with her hands, cowering openly as the flames wash around her. A scar that's been left on even your memory of her.

Her Pokemon held no such fear. Yet neither did she seem free of trauma. An incarnation of rage and hatred, even moreso now than she was before, contradicting her own existence by exercising restraint. Holding her arms out to her sides, she shielded her trainer from the oncoming inferno, growling with fury yet enduring the pain.

Once there was no more pain to endure, all that left to do was retaliate, venting that pain onto the world until nothing remained to hurt or be hurt by.

A deafening roar echoed throughout the Ultra Deep Sea, together with the sound of cracking bones. The reaper draws back her arm as she lunges. Hatred, anger, pain, sorrow... all of those overflowing emotions pour straight into her clenched fist. The pain from their last encounter. The pain from that attack now. Even the pain from all her earlier battles today. Every last grudge and every last grievance come bearing down on Sakura in the form of a downward-angled hook, the reaper's proverbial scythe.

No matter what her trainer's twisted opinions are, she will never forgive. No matter how much time passes, no matter how far she had to travel, and no matter what happens to you or your partners... this Pokemon will never, ever forgive.

Clash 1
Post: +10 MP
(Total: 280 MP)

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played by

Nagato

Baki

She/Her

December 21

Saffron City

administrative assistant

Officer

156 cm // 5'1" height

oceans of angels, oceans of stars, down by the sea is where you drown your scars

awards

993 posts

DOLLARS

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TAG WITH @2baki

POSTED ON Apr 29, 2023 9:37:25 GMT

[attr="class","sambam"]

A vengeful ghost suits her well, you think.

She couldn't have chosen a more fitting partner. A slave to her hatred even in death, come back to haunt you. Why she couldn't have chosen something better to do with her afterlife? You couldn't say.

But, no matter.

Even against ghosts, you'll rage against the past, until it's nothing but ashes. Nothing that went on in that city, the first seventeen years of your life, could ever be worth holding onto.

"If my heart's empty, yours is a vessel filled with hatred... that's what you want me to say, isn't it? Feed into your delusions, turn you into a monster in my head? You're the same as always, Saki."

The truth is, you already have.

How else could you respond to this, the darkest stain on your past come walking out of a dream to dredge up old grudges, bring you right back to the past you've been running from? She's an onryo, come to curse you for daring to want more, for wanting to escape that life you both once led.

She'll drag you back, kicking and screaming.

"But I want to live... I want to be alive... I want to live a normal life! The difference between us has, and always will be, that!"

You feel the crushing pressure of her pokemon's blows from this far away.

This is the power of a grudge that's lasted years, that can surpass death itself. She's felt the loss you delivered the last time down to her soul, taken it into herself. It's tangible emotion made manifest.

She's crushed into the ground, a crater made in the bleached earth as she takes the blow head on. Nothing for her to do but to face the full hatred of this ghost.

"Sakura! Don't give in! The past's over and done with, so fight! Resist!"

You scream, your voice ragged.

She quivers, and opens her mouth. Pouring burning-hot acid spills out, directed like a spray of bullets, point-blank into the face of the ghost in front of her. An overwhelming malice, as if she cherishes the act to spit back at Annihilape's attempt at revenge, to egg this wild beast on further.

It is the greatest act of disrespect she can possibly show.

Sakura (Salazzle) used Toxic!

CLASH 2
+40 MP

Saki Shitachi

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played by

Nemu

She/Her; They/Them

Ecruteak City

Fond of girls

Failure

Grunt

26 height

i used to dream in the dark of palisades park.

awards

63 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @serendipity

POSTED ON Apr 29, 2023 21:56:06 GMT

She winces at your words, clutching at her heart as if they're stabbing into her core, but her quiet chuckling tells you that she's enjoying the pain. "Oof. You really are mad if you're calling me that, aren't you? I thought we were closer. Are you sure don't you have those two hearts reversed, senpai?"

Bringing her legs up, she bends her knees and folds one over the other, using the Ultra Space to sit down casually in midair while thoughtfully stroking her chin. A smile quickly lights up on her face.

"Yes, it's that difference that I love about you! That battle in your soul, between the normal and abnormal, is like the finest wine that I can possibly imagine."

The terrible thing she calls a Pokemon closes her eyes and recoils, wiping the poisonous gunk from its eyes.

"I don't care whether you see me as a mentor or as an antagonist. Whether you grow as a person from those experiences and move forward, or clutch onto those memories while seething and trying to cope, is entirely up to you."

Annihilape tilts to the side as if trying to crack her bones, rolls her shoulder, then raises her fist over head.

"I'm only here to watch over that journey, and to make sure it doesn't get too stale. And whether that's good or bad, well, that's also dependent on you. I just want to see the realest, purest Tsubaki I can find. Time out though."

She snaps her fingers, and that soul-rending punch halts. Annihilape's fist shakes and trembles, using all of her focus to restrain itself, but she does, for just a moment. "Stick with Mud Slap. Let's not lose one of our protagonists this soon into the show."

Roaring with malice, her monster rips chunks from the earth itself, crushing them into dust before hurling them down at Sakura. Rather than meeting disrespect with disrespect, it looked more like she was trying to bury the fire-type alive.

Her trainer keeps on talking, much more interested in you than what your two partners are doing. "Yes, yes, resist, fight back against life! But, while the past may be over, its threads weave their way into the future, you know? That's simply how this big old interconnected tapestry we call life works. How can you write a good sequel, if you ignore all the books and movies that came before it? Are you just trying to say none of that ever happened? Well, now who's delusional."

Clash 1
Post: +10 MP
(Total: 420 MP)

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played by

Nagato

Baki

She/Her

December 21

Saffron City

administrative assistant

Officer

156 cm // 5'1" height

oceans of angels, oceans of stars, down by the sea is where you drown your scars

awards

993 posts

DOLLARS

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TAG WITH @2baki

POSTED ON Apr 30, 2023 4:11:53 GMT

[attr="class","sambam"]

You clench your fists as she speaks.

It's like she's driving pins right into your ears for all you wanna the hear the words of a dead woman. They should be lost, drowned in a black sea, just like everything else was. You wish you could forget her false congratulatory, patronizing voice. The malice that courses from her lips stings worse than it used to.

"No... I'll never call you 'Senpai' again. Maybe once, I wanted to be the worst version of myself, but now..."

The face of the one who taught you there was more to this world comes to mind. Someone who so loved the world, but was taken by that life of brutality and hatred you fell into. It shocked you out of the dream you seemed content to walk aimlessly through til that point, hurting everyone you came across.

Now you're facing the one who put you on that path once more.

But you're not that same Tsubaki she once knew.

"... Now, I'll reject that past! Turn it to ash! Not to forget it, don't get me wrong... there's no way I could ever forget, that person I used to be... But, I'll burn it up, all the way to nothing! Turn it black so I'll never be able to return to it!"

It's your own way of moving forward.

There's nothing for you there. You can't possibly return to it. And she's a reminder, too, of that person you used to be. That's why it's so agonizing to even look at her standing there with that smug aura, as if she hadn't one of the biggest hands in shaping you into that person.

No, rather...

She just brought out the kind of person you were, didn't she?

Sakura recoils as earth is flung at her, threatening to put her out like a guttering flame. She glances up at her opponent from the middle of the small crater she's been beaten down into, defiant look in her eyes, though she struggles to pick herself up off the ground.

"Sakura! Don't you dare ever forget the fire that burns in your heart! You'll use it to melt down everything wicked in this world someday, won't you!?"

You take a step forward.

She turns and stares into your eyes, in silent agreement.

You can feel your heart welling with a white-hot flame, same as hers, all the indignation in the world brought to bear against this pair of ghosts. They've come to drag you into the past, but you won't fall so easily into that trap anymore.

All the love in your heart courses through your body like venom, fills you to your core, til you feel nothing but pain. They're deserving of it all. All of your love, mercy, compassion.

Which means...

"... Go ahead, then! Start with them! Melt them down to nothing!"

For the woman who used to be your best friend, it's what she deserves more than anything.

Sakura nods affirmatively, opening her jaws wide. Burning hot venom spews into the air and rains from the skies toward the both of them, sizzling all the while.

Sakura (Salazzle) used Venoshock!

CLASH 2
+50 MP

Saki Shitachi

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played by

Nemu

She/Her; They/Them

Ecruteak City

Fond of girls

Failure

Grunt

26 height

i used to dream in the dark of palisades park.

awards

63 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @serendipity

POSTED ON May 1, 2023 2:19:27 GMT

"That's good! Hahahaha..." She starts clapping. "Oh that's very good! Yes, yes, perfect! The former monster's going to become a hero of justice, is she? I can't wait to see how you struggle and evolve!" It almost sounds like she's proud. You know full well that her mirth is genuine, but whether or not it's mired in spite and sadism is another matter. She acts like she's feeling a parent's joy, seeing you as her child that's outgrown her. But maybe she's just excited, because she thinks she'll get to put you back in the place she thinks you belong.

Her composure slips with a sudden frown. There's no time to run, or to send out that second Pokemon, whichever one happened to survive. She curls up into a ball and tries to protect herself; sharp grunts of intense pain escape her, as your Pokemon burns away at her flesh. Though she acted like a spirit from the moment you first met, she burned and melted all the same as anyone else, and still does.

That Pokemon of hers takes kindly to none of this. Stumbling and lurching - not from the overbearing pain, but simply from the damage to her body - she grabs and lifts Sakura, holding her in your direction. At the same time she drops your Pokemon, she delivers a second Rage Fist, sending Sakura hurtling in your direction like a living bullet. She then hunches forwards, growling and grumbling insatiably. She tries to make her way towards the two of you, practically walking on all fours, before collapsing and succumbing to your venomous affection.

Clash 1
Post: +10 MP
Saki's Pokemon KO'd: +50 MP
Mission 'Completion' (5 posts): +100 MP
Mission Win: +200 MP
(Total: 1280 MP) (From this thread: 450 MP)

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played by

Nagato

Baki

She/Her

December 21

Saffron City

administrative assistant

Officer

156 cm // 5'1" height

oceans of angels, oceans of stars, down by the sea is where you drown your scars

awards

993 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @2baki

POSTED ON May 14, 2023 20:56:06 GMT

[attr="class","sambam"]

You gaze at her with all the scorn in the world.

This woman represents everything you detest. Where Rockets would have you give up on your humanity, become a beast, she would gladly relinquish all that made her human.

You won't fall so low. Could never allow yourself to fall that low again, now you know the true value of a human heart. You'll fill the void in your chest yet, you'll become something worth loving again.

But she seems intent to drag you down with her to the depths of hell.

"That's right! Justice. That's what makes us human, isn't it? And yet, you're so ready to be rid of that, aren't you!?"

You scream it out, and hear your own voice reverberate back at you in the void. There's nothing here, nothing even remotely human left. A reflection of your empty heart, and here you are, protesting that the value of human life is in a tenet you've never followed.

But you've turned over a new leaf, you aim to be something human yet...!

Sakura falls on the ground beside you, the flames on her back guttering out. She's knocked out completely, exhausted. But you recall her without a word, grasping another ball at your side and tossing out your dearest friend.

"Sumire... crush her! Squeeze all the evil out of her!"

Your Arbok coils in response to your command, leaping forward like a spring and baring her fangs. She can crush an automobile with her girth, let alone some small girl.

But something in the back of your mind makes you question if she'd ever let that happen.

Saki Shitachi

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played by

Nemu

She/Her; They/Them

Ecruteak City

Fond of girls

Failure

Grunt

26 height

i used to dream in the dark of palisades park.

awards

63 posts

DOLLARS

part of

TAG WITH @serendipity