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Smuggling affairs were so droll and irritating.[break][break]

As a Grunt on vessels much like this one, Elisabeth had fantasized many times about being above such operations. How nice it would be to direct others to go on foolhardy black market deals, while she could enjoy the sweat of their labor from a distant, ivory tower.[break][break]

Alas, fantasies had a way of being disappointing in reality, no matter how many blood-soaked rungs she'd climbed on her way up the Rocket ladder.[break][break]

"Fiorelli," she corrected him, her voice sharp even though her expression seemed bland with disinterest. "You call me Fiorelli, or Underboss. Underboss Fiorelli, if you wish to be especially prudent. First names are a sign of trust in our field of work."[break][break]

Unspoken, her glare leveled the following accusation: And you've done nothing to earn mine.[break][break]

Her Tentacruel shadowed them undersea, its dark silhouette following them in slow procession as they moved towards their destination. These Slowbros wouldn't deliver themselves, and apparently the water routes were more closely watched as of late than they once were. Hence the need for reassurances from the upper brass.[break][break]

Perhaps the answer for Kouji's question was that simple: "In plain terms, an underboss is the person in Rocket in charge of ensuring we succeed in our objectives."[break][break]

That blade cut both ways, however, should those missives fail.

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Kouji couldn’t help but let loose a small chuckle at her reply. ”Sounds like Kanto.” His father had stressed that a great deal when growing up, it was always a matter of sir whenever he was stuck doing ‘training.
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”Not that I mind Fiorelli, but our last names give away more y’know? That’s a Kalos name if I’ve ever heard one.” He said with a guess, he knew them but at the same time…
[break][break]
It wasn’t like he really knew, but at the same time, antagonizing an underboss wasn’t the kind of thing he liked doing either. Raised as a sword for rocket since birth, he was still someone who had his own views on it. Different to the rest, he was a new kid on the block, a handful of missions under his belt.
[break][break]
”So if I fail this mission, you’ll be the one bathing in my blood huh?” He said with a small chuckle, the idea of his own death? It bothered him, but at the same time, he didn’t see himself failing. He wondered if his recent failures were why he was paired with such a big figure, but he doubted that was the reason. His head wasn’t worth anywhere near that much just yet.
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”Mah, I guess it’s better you than some sweaty guy. Try make it quick when you do. My throat’s a lil scarred, so go for the back of my neck.” He spoke with mirth, as if to diffuse any tension that was building in his spine, to break down the fear that was building in his heart. Reminding himself of his own mortality, that was the purpose behind it, and that was the same moment in which he adjusted the engine of the boat, turned it off completely and took to the oars.
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He merely pointed to the distance, lights that poked at the horizon. It was a few kilometers away, but the ears of pokemon were a thing he didn't want to underestimate. It was actions that he did without thinking about, smuggling was something he did as a second nature but he personally hated. Forced to join his father, time and time again, a battle was the thing he was hoping for, but considering the person on the boat...Maybe he'd get the thing he had asked for if he went with his whims.
[break][break]
He wouldn't fail again.

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"You're right in that regard, yes."[break][break]

The faintest glimmer of respect reflected in her eyes, shining bright like twin emeralds in the darkness.[break][break]

"Some of us use different names in battle for that reason. 'Viper' is the moniker I have hidden behind more often than not. You may call me that as well, if you wish."[break][break]

It was a serpentine mask that had already been unveiled by freya morningstar, once. Silently she suspected that would not be the last time she was forced to confront the reality of her dual lives.[break][break]

She leaned back, watching the waves ripple beneath the brisk sea breeze, as he continued to speak. You could learn a great deal about someone by how they handled silence. So many people despised it, finding it uncomfortable, and thus finding themselves compelled to fill it. Privately, Elisabeth filed Kouji into that category.[break][break]

As for her, she quietly filtered through his words until one struck her as of interest: "Kanto?"[break][break]

He had read her rightly enough as Kalosian; her accent betrayed her, even if her name hadn't.[break][break]

"Then this sort of operation must seem quite repetitive and dull to you. Tame, even."

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Kouji laughed, a real laugh that he had to suppress with his hands soon enough.
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”I’m the new guy on the block, can’t complain about my jobs. I’ll do what’s needed.” He answered, but it was more like an answer ingrained in his brain than his own true thoughts.
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”But I haven’t been to Kanto, ain’t from there either. I’m a Hoenn national, just heard alot about it from my pops, and older brother and sisters.” He said as he began to row. The monotoneous back and forth, the burn he felt in his forearms, his upper arms, his shoulders, and then eventually his back.
[break][break]
But he was no stranger to pain, he didn’t allow himself to settle on such thoughts. Merely pushing their heavy ship across the waters. ”So, Viper. You from there, or just prissy in the same way? I’m just a grunt, but, I sure as hell know we ain’t the same thing no more.” He felt weird saying we, but at the same time it felt like a real part of his own history, his own past, his own experience.
[break][break]
”We’re too soft.”

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"No," Elisabeth said simply, casting her gaze across the water. Bobbing lights twinkled ahead to indicate their distant port. "I came to Hoenn long after Kanto had been won."[break][break]

No oars moved beneath the weight of her own arms. The tentacles of the Tentacruel beneath them ferried them along with an unseen pressure, gently pushing them in tandem with the grunt's movements.[break][break]

"You were right before. I hail from Kalos. Rocket is different there, too. Operating in the shadows, money passing hands to grease palms. It is an oligarchy, not a meritocracy."[break][break]

She could have enlisted in Rocket in her home region. They'd have thrived with her, or so she'd been told. Her infamy would have attracted attention both good and bad in nature.[break][break]

"You can earn your place in Hoenn. Calamity ensures that strength is rewarded. Softness," she said, drawing out his choice of words with an undercurrent of faint admonition, "can be deceiving. Many things that appear delicate remain thorned."

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Kouji hummed aloud, the momentum of the ship carried them forward as the dead currents didn’t shift them in this area. He cupped his chin at those words before he looked up; golden eyes caught the moonlight for a flash.
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”We’re rockets, not flowers. I’d rather burn than prick.”
[break][break]
It was a quick response before he grabbed the oars once more, realizing that they were being moved by some other force, he looked at her with a raised eyebrow asking an unasked question; the subtle lights might have hidden the small shift in his expression.
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”Well, you might be a scary flower though, but, if you didn’t join there…” He stopped himself before he went too far. He didn’t need to say his thoughts aloud, the fact she was an underboss here told him he was wrong.
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”Forget it. I ain’t all that bright, but we’ve finally started to win again; so it can’t be wrong.” He said as if to cover up his earlier failure. The rowing of the boat, the movement of the ship, and the feeling of dancing lights across the shore; he looked across the sea scope, with the aide below the ship they would be able to avoid that large ship in the distance with ease.
[break][break]
”As for names, just Kouji is fine, I don’t like hiding my name.” Just like many things, ones past was hidden far more in a last name. His first name, it was a mistake, a joke, it was a thing he adored more than the rest of himself.
[break][break]
”Well, Grunt works too.”

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"Kouji, then."[break][break]

A barely discernible curl of her lip upwards betrayed the ghost of a smile.[break][break]

"I find flowers are scarier than most people would believe. It was how I started here in Hoenn, actually. Toxicology."[break][break]

Glistening red orbs crested through the water for a brief second, revealing the silhouette of her cnidarian Pokemon before the Poison-type submerged once more undersea.[break][break]

"There's a delicate art to victory. Or can be, if you want to finesse it properly. We are not all designed to burn the earth to ash," she mused aloud, following his metaphor as her fingers crawled up the side of the boat. "Some of us simmer instead, for a little while, until the water is discovered to be boiling our foes alive. By then they're comfortable."[break][break]

A wicked smile preceded her final thought, teeth flashing white in the starlight.[break][break]

"And once you're comfortable with your ruin, it's far too late to turn back."

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It might have been the first time Kouji looked at the person known as Elisabeth; not merely glancing at her, but looking at her. It was a small chuckle that turned into a laugh, it was the same feeling he had felt when he had talked to Cillian Quinn, perhaps it was this trait that separates him from them, or perhaps allowed them to become Underbosses.
[break][break]
His smirk turned vicious, it was a toothy thing; wide enough to force his eyes to close just as his throaty chuckles finally decided to settle down. Maybe this was a different kind of violence, but it was still one that he could respect.
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”You’re scary Viper. I thought you’re just a pretty lady with a sharp tongue, but you underbosses always find a way to prove me wrong…So that makes me wonder…” He said as he began to pick up the pace of his rowing, his breath was growing harsher by the second, but that was fine.
[break][break]
He enjoyed this conversation enough, talking to this person was worthwhile, and so he picked his words carefully.
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”Do you know just what those at the bottom are like? You at the top are there for a reason, but everyone at the bottom has a different view of the path forward. We’re more united than those guys at the league, but we’re not a singular force. Those guys…Well, I’m not different either. I’ve got a different vision to you. But, at the end of the day.”
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He would destroy whatever he was pointed to, and leave whatever he was not pointed at.
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”I’ll destroy the things that don’t boil.”

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"Yes. We are two halves of the same coin, in that way."[break][break]

Her own laughter was a soft, quiet thing: subdued and lacking in any real amusement. Lashes lowered as she turned to regard Kouji again, finding this time his gaze felt different on her.[break][break]

A woman used to being disregarded understood when she was finally being seen.[break][break]

"It's a curious question you ask me. I wonder in which way you mean. Am I familiar with being underestimated?" she began, her hands retreating from the side of the boat to her lap. "Am I familiar with being powerless? Or am I familiar with being forced to act on someone else's orders, never mind my own personal wishes?"[break][break]

She held his gaze, defiant in her meaningful stare, before she replied.[break][break]

"The answer is yes. And yes. And yes."[break][break]

The laughter returned once more, hushed in the muted glow of the starlight overhead.[break][break]

"I will teach you a lesson I've seen many learn the hard way, Kouji. The fastest way to lose power is to take it for granted."

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The words she spoke sunk into his head naturally, there was a difference in the way her words echoed before, and after the moment he acknowledged her. He nodded slowly, but at the same time, he could say he agreed with the idea itself, but before he could comment on her advice, he had to tackle the answer to the unasked question he had asked.
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”Yes, yes, and yes huh. Guess that makes both of us.” He knew that, to live a life under the thumb of another, to do their bidding, to never be seen as yourself until the moment you changed the dynamic, changed your life, and found yourself being directionless.
[break][break]
”You’re really strong huh? Figured out how to think for yourself.” He said as he released a deep sigh from the depths of his lungs. That was the difference between the two of them, he had one method, and he was unable of thinking about others. He was aware of this weakness, it was Zev Harcourt that had made him realize it, but it had been the failures after the fact that had forced it down his throat.
[break][break]
”But…I think everyone gets power mixed up.” His usually energetic, chipper voice, sounded just a little bit subdued as he talked about it. It wasn’t the logic of a man who had a great deal of experience, nor was it that of a learned man. He just had his own instincts, that of an animal caged in the shape of a human.
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”I don’t think you can take your own breath for granted. You can’t take your own organs for granted, or your skin. Power is the same way, you either make sure you keep it healthy, or it’ll fade like any other organ. But it’s nothing special, nothing unique, everyone has it. But only some people work on it, it’s a part of you.”

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"In a sense. But without power, your life isn't really your own. The very breath you breathe can be taken from you, if the right person decides your fate is theirs to own."[break][break]

Her fingers gently curled into a fist, knuckles whitening as her lips drew into a tight line. She stared into the nothingness of the black-blue expanse, wisps of morning fog dancing on velvet water.[break][break]

"That's why I sought power, at least. To have control over my own fate."[break][break]

The veil of mist eventually parted before the bow of their modest vessel, breaking apart and crumbling like dust.[break][break]

"Is it why you seek power, too? Or does something else drive your hunger."

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Kouji knew his answer at his core, but the very moment he thought about it a little deeper it became murky. He didn’t want to give a false answer to the woman who had been so honest to him, it was the pride of a…
[break][break]
”I thought so…But then I ran into so many different monsters in the Ultra Deep Sea, in that war. I thought I discovered a new dream, but then that got turned upside down too.” The failures that followed a day of successes beyond his own means, coming out on top against the greatest monsters that the League had, only to fall to the words of those on his own side.
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”But, I just want to fight. Until I can stand on top, so everyone else around me is stuck fighting forever…It’s silly, but I don’t want this war to ever end. I want it to go on forever, that’s my goal. A never ending war.” So everyone can continue to improve, constantly. It was a strange thing to put into words, only one other man had seen it. Navy had been the only one to hear his words, the man most opposed to him, the man he would kill with his own two hands.
[break][break]
”It doesn’t matter what I have to do, if I fade out making that a possibility. I was born to only fight for someone else’s goals, to be their stepping stone. But now, I’ll create a world that’s suited to me.” He spoke with conviction, his voice didn’t waver in the slightest.

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"...Heh."[break][break]

A dark chuckle left her lips, a peculiar sort of humor taking hold of her as she listened to the man across from her. It wasn't condescending in its tenor; no, the ring of its hollow amusement spoke of something tired and cynical.[break][break]

"You have chosen a rather easy aspiration to reach, then."[break][break]

It made sense. Rocket attracted those like Zev Harcourt: weapons that demanded bodies to sate their bloodlust. Without Rocket, what were they in the end? What use had the world for wolves in a reality where the lambs couldn't be devoured?[break][break]

"War never ends. There will always be someone who wants to take what someone else has. All conflict exists in perpetuity."[break][break]

It was why she'd discarded her own fleece and sharpened her fangs, a long time ago.

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