Elisabeth wandered the remnants of her old home like a ghost haunting its grave. A hand idly traced over nearby trees, letting them continue to hunch and recoil from the resentment of her touch.[break][break]

In the darkening shadow of Wo-chien slithering by her side, the earth seemed to fall into a perpetual rot -- the barren emptiness of winter trapped in the dying throes of autumn, somehow timed at summer's height.[break][break]

Perhaps Demeter's daughter loitered in the underworld, several months too long.[break][break]

Ochre eyes narrowed and turned skyward as the Ruinous Beast by her side paused, hissing softly. Elisabeth's carmine gaze soon followed, squinting upwards at a serpentine figure bearing a familiar woman.[break][break]

"We have company. How unpleasant."

[break]

What was the role of a Peacekeeper, if not to mend a shattered peace?[break][break]

And yet, what purpose could a deity of harmony have, if deities of chaos and discord didn't exist to challenge them?

[attr="class","ooc"] Eva Morales[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Opposing forces don’t always equate to balance. When one gets too bold, too reckless, chaos can spark amongst the calm. To smother such chaos, is to break the balance and impose a force beyond what is necessary in order to restore it.

A forked tongue tasted the air in quick succession. The sting of decay traveled down to the pits of the dragon’s stomach. Something heavy lingered in the air, a dark presence, an energy that many may not be able to sense. With a jolt, the agitated beast changed course. Eva clung to their scales in surprise, nearly being thrown off by the sudden EXTREME SPEED. Their golden eyes scoured the wasteland with an expert precision, clinging to any movement that stirred beneath them.

The emerald streak descended into the woods like the meteor they once disintegrated. Rotted foliage snapped under the pressure of their sudden landing. The cloud of detritus fell to reveal the coiled serpent, a tall, looming, foreboding presence that demanded an audience. Their lips parted slowly, fangs unfurling to mark their dominance over this place with a deep, bellowing roar; a challenge to whoever dared infringe on their region’s harmony.

Their golden eyes bore through the shadows as if the golden hue itself would burn away whatever darkness lingered here.

---

Elisabeth Fiorelli

The woods came alive to greet the dragon as it descended into the depths of decay and rot.[break][break]

"Our forest does not welcome you, meddling interloper."

[break]

All natural life seemed to vanish before the BARREN TERRAIN that stripped the Petalburg Woods of its vegetation; bare trees snaked their leafless branches to seek to ensnare and ensnarl the serpentine beast, a thicket of thorns manifesting out from the dirt-strewn rubble.[break][break]

when wo-chien is on the field, elisabeth can summon a BARREN TERRAIN that clears any existing terrain, while preventing any other from taking form for a period of time. anyone within the terrain will be continually STRENGTH SAPPED, weakening them while also healing elisabeth and wo-chien.

[break]

The sight sought to blot out the woman and her Ruinous Beast from view, silhouettes lost to the endless foliage -- save for the glow of two ochre eyes in the distance.[break][break]

"We will not repeat ourselves. Begone."

[attr="class","ooc"] Eva Morales[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Our forest.

The audacity to lay claim on what is not theirs infuriated the dragon. It struck a primal chord embedded into their very being. Hoenn was theirs. This was their domain, their charge, their responsibility.

The golden hue of their eyes burned brighter against the BARREN TERRAIN. A low growl crescendoed in disdain. Hostility crept into the guardian’s core like the unnaturally decayed vines hungrily reaching for their emerald scales. Their body tensed, rippling as they rose and hovered over the terrain.The sickening crack and snap of vines whipped back towards the ground as the dragon unfurled.

Death would never contain life.

YOU AND YOUR PLAGUE ARE NOT WELCOME IN MY REGION. YOU WILL BE PURGED.

The ancient presence loomed heavy with aggressive intentions.

WE ARE NOT A BENEVOLENT GOD

A warning they were also not willing to repeat.

---

Elisabeth Fiorelli

"Such arrogance," sneered a mocking, feminine voice that hummed with an otherworldly tenor. "Such possession. How much this world resents the way you seek to clutch it in your coils."[break][break]

Vines snapped and tore before the unfurling of the magnificent creature's wings, defiant before nature's desire to ground it. The dark-haired woman was a flash of spectral-white skin flitting between the trees, another round of leaves and twining ivy seeking to hide her trail behind her as she fled.[break][break]

Dark energies flared up around the ochre-eyed shadow that lingered by her side, its vaguely snail-like shape visible as it summoned a RUINATION upon dragon and rider. Its power bore down with a self-righteous air of suffering and pain that sought to cut to the rawest, most vulnerable place in their mutual psyche.[break][break]

"Tell us. If you are not benevolent, why care for the fate of this place at all?"

[break]

"Are you a jealous god? Or merely a slave to an ancient duty that shackles you even now?"

[attr="class","ooc"] Eva Morales[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Arrogance is won through millennia of existence. Golden eyes narrowed, still searching the shadows for the source of their hostility. Thin tendrils of RESENTMENT crawled beneath their scales. It was a natural emotion in confrontation though they remained wary of the dark influence permeating through these woods.

YOU DO NOT SUFFOCATE WHAT YOU CARE FOR.

Clutching the region would only mean it slips through their claws like sand. Instead they are a shield, a knight, a sword, a caregiver, a mother and father, a symbol of hope and a promise Hoenn would persevere. Hoenn is them, and they are Hoenn.

RUINATION was met with a painful roar that drowns out the scream of a woman. It was a darkness that suffocated them, attempting to force them to their metaphorical knees. No god bowed to chaos. The darkness was challenged by its opposition. Uncharacteristic of a dragon, they call upon fae energy. The wind turns, a storm looms above. Pink wisps of SPRINGTIDE STORM tear through the trees on the back of the god’s winds, battling the RUINATION for supremacy. A feminine voice projects with the power of a god’s from above, another set of golden eyes peering down through the canopy.

DUTY IS POWER AND PURPOSE. WE FIGHT FOR WHAT WE LOVE, NOT AGAINST WHAT WE HATE.

---

Elisabeth Fiorelli

"Then you, O Wise and Ancient One, are a fool."

[break]

The SPRINGTIDE STORM breathed life into the dying forest. It fought against the shadowy tendrils of darkness that sought to encroach the dragon in place, evoking a memory of the verdant flora that this part of the region had once known better than any other.[break][break]

As the impact of the storm buffeted back the trees, the figure that had caused this blight came into full view: a hissing gastropod, shelled in peculiar wooden tablets that bore familiar names upon its back. Behind it stood a dark-haired woman, shielding her carmine eyes against the bracing wind.[break][break]

Only then did her red eyes meet familiar green at a distance, and a cruel smile pulled on her lips.[break][break]

"What did we tell you about incurring debts to yourself, Morales?"

[break]

They spoke not to the proud figure that had withstood a millennia of suffering, stoic in its martyrdom. No, they spoke to the human vessel that might understand them and their own pain: the soft-hearted creature that could weep for things the most powerful gods would not.[break][break]

Humanity ached for things that only the damned understood.[break][break]

"When you have completed your duty here, what love is left to warm you? We wonder."

[break]

Another SPRINGTIDE STORM retorted in kind, but its petals were shriveled and browned; the winds were dry of any life-giving touch, arid and hot as any desert that had never known the fragrance of flowers.[break][break]

"It surely won't be MATIAS SILPH."

[attr="class","ooc"] Eva Morales[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

If it wasn’t for the recent bouquet of withering flowers, Eva may not have been able to extract recognition from her words alone. The woman that melted away from the shadows was not the Elisabeth Fiorelli she knew, but no one else would have been privy to the intimate conversation they shared in the Insectarium of the Museum of Natural History. The avatar’s eyes flashed between the woman and her patron. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together - and Eva was a genius.

”You looked better blonde, Fiorelli.”

Likely not the first time she’d heard that. The woman’s macabre appearance made her look sickly, pale, lifeless. Familiarity is enough to draw her off her patrons back. Eva leaps, a slow, controlled fall. The emerald in her eyes still shines gold, two beacons of light in a world of darkness. She descends from the dragon like an angel entering hell. The death and decay around them finds itself bathed in the golden light of PRIMAL ENERGY.

"GODS DO NOT ACCRUE DEBT.”

This voice is accentuated by the depths of the god’s power as she speaks for them both. For she is a god, appointed to a position above the meager mortality of man. Her gilded gaze flashes brighter as her arms sweep across her body. The SPRINGTIDE STORM is consumed by a rush of powerful DELTA WINDS. The blanket of decay stirs violently, the weakneed trees shudder, cracking like thunder around them beneath the hurricane force gales.

Eva's STRONG WINDS can NULLIFY WEATHER & TERRAINS OR MOVES THAT ACTIVATE THEM. She is able to use these WINDS to create PROTECTIVE & DEFLECTIVE BARRIERS for herself and allies. The more she creates, the weaker they are. Furthermore, she may use these WINDS to glide or ascend to high places, but can not fly.

But RESENTMENT has a way of finding the cracks, the weakness in their victim. There is no love waiting for her, this is true. She loves and loves but there is nothing in return. No arms to hold her, no warmth to comfort her, no hope to guide her. She is only exhausted. They leech life from her like a parasite. They will suck her dry, greedy, selfish. There’s no one to replenish her stores. Like the Giving Tree, she will let it happen; selfless until the end.

The mention of his name does stir a darkness that lies dormant, one she wouldn’t dare tap into. Her face twitches in pain against her will as the tendrils of DOUBT slip beneath her armor.

---

Elisabeth Fiorelli

"Ah, but this part of us has always been ugly, hasn't it, Elisabeth?"

[break]

How hideous it was: this twisted, miserable, contorted seed of scorn. It had buried its roots so deep within her soul, she couldn't extract it from herself no matter how hard she tried.[break][break]

And hadn't she tried?[break][break]

Hadn't she tried, and tried, and tried, to hide this monstrous part of her from the daylight, smothering it so it only reared its ugly head when committing dark deeds at night?[break][break]

The more she tried to kill her resentment, the more its unfed rage screamed to be felt.[break][break]

"Gods demand debts of us, though, don't they?"

[break]

Nature's way of regaining balance was with a violent purging.[break][break]

Rayquaza's winds stripped back the barren desolation that had laid waste to the Petalburg Woods, razing the ground in a way that did not deny the advent of life, but rather, dismissed the seeds of its ruination. The air gasped with relief to be freed from the chokehold of rot, fresh and inviting once more as the trees stretched to bask in its soothing touch.[break][break]

Greenery, faintly, had returned to the grass beneath their feet. The source of the blight became clearer and clearer as the environment shifted, what remained of the barren landscape now encircling the pale-skinned woman as her Ruinous Beast drew closer to her side.[break][break]

"What debt did you agree to, then, 'Savior of Hoenn'? What suffering does your god demand from you?"

[break]

The golden-eyed gaze of the Peacekeeper met the furious glare of the Scorned, red eyes now tinged with the ochre of autumnal decay. The earth tremored with her silent indignation, vines rising up to dance around her in a thicket of thorns.[break][break]

"Ours is a bond of mutual resentment. But you? Yours is the shackle of martyrdom."

[break]

"There is nothing noble in this calling. Both of us were simply chosen for the reasons we suffer most."

[break]

It infuriated her, suddenly, that Eva Morales thought herself above her. Who was she, to denounce Elisabeth as lesser-than? When that woman would pathetically break herself, over and over, for those who would not so much as extend a hand for her in return? Neither of them bore the blessing of a benevolent god.[break][break]

How laughable that this pompous woman acted as if they were not the same: sisters cut from the same cloth spun by the cruel loom of Fate.[break][break]

"You would burn yourself to ashes so that others could stay warm on your cinders. But we? We burn to ensure that others will burn with us."

[break]

She clicked her tongue, and Wo-chien glowed as GIGA DRAIN leeched forth the lifeforce of Rayquaza with parasitic intent. She smiled, but it was a hateful, mocking thing -- a distortion of what happiness was supposed to look like, on a face that had not known the emotion for too many years.[break][break]

"We wonder what it must be like, to burn for those who will not mourn you."

[attr="class","ooc"] Eva Morales[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

Their winds breathe life back into the forest. They steal away the darkness and the decay, leaving hope for new life in shades of emerald as brilliant as their scales. They watched the rot recede back to the feet of the woman and her deity. The dragon’s sharp gaze snapped to the culprit: a slimy little pest. Their aura shrouded them in a chilling darkness. It’s something sinister and powerful, as if it could smother the whole world - but not yet.

This energy was new and terrifying. Their nostrils flared in urgency. Every prolonged second it remained in their region, the closer they crawled to that inevitable and uncertain future.

This PLAGUE must be purged.

They can feel the resentment rising in their chosen. That frail human bond to the VOLATILE had weakened her spirit. Their body shuddered as they sent a pulse through their tether, a lifeline to pull her out of whatever dark magic this witch had generated.

’RISE ABOVE THE FEEBLE NATURE OF MAN. GODS SEE THROUGH THE ILLUSIONS OF DEMONS.’

And that’s all this creature was. Not a god, but an imp trying to sow the seeds of chaos.

“They demand only what is necessary.”

Which is everything: her life, her well-being, her love, her hope, her dreams. They all now pointed towards one purpose, one greater good. Her life was no longer her own; it belonged to all of Hoenn. Its survival was her purpose.

“Shackles?”

Eva smiled, the light melody of a laugh floating towards the opposition.

”On the contrary, Elisabeth. I am finally free.”

Free to tap into a power most dreamed of, to reach beyond the potential of humanity and seize the power of a god to make this world a better place. She was no longer bound to relying on blind faith. She could light a path, pave the way to a brighter future. She was faith and hope and everything in between. Eva was no longer a brain in the background, she was the beacon of hope she always dreamed she could be.

“Hm, so eager to watch the world burn. And what happens when you burn it all? What will be left for you to devour? Spite is a false god.”

Both Rayquaza and Eva’s gaze beamed directly at the gastropod.

“It will only devour you and in the end you will wither away.”

Eva only felt the irritation of her patron as the GIGA DRAIN tapped into their precious life force. She flinched, stepping back in the anticipation of retaliation. She could feel the fire burning in their chest as if it was her own.

“SO YOU WANT TO BURN?”

Their leathery lips curled into what may be recognized as a sneer. Scarlet flames dripped from the commissures of their mouth like molten lava.

"SO BE IT."

Rayquaza would grant them their last wish and with it purge this land of their foul existence. Their jaw fell and a torrent of hellfire marked the end of their reign in Petalburg Woods.

---

Elisabeth Fiorelli

And maybe some traitorous part of her did want to burn.[break][break]

She couldn't deny that some small, tired part of herself ached to be purged in this cleansing flame -- the part of her that had once been so, so afraid of hellfire, in the life before her divine awakening.[break][break]

Didn't you learn this already, Elisabeth? That your spite is a hunger that cannot be fed?

[break]

You will forever be empty.

[break]

Wo-chien's ochre eyes turned to her suddenly, furious in their glare, as Elisabeth's own tether to her humanity wavered before the sight of Rayquaza's own golden, blazing orbs of judgment. Flames gathered in its teeth, fangs aglow with retribution, but it was another deity's ire that took hold of Elisabeth then: sharp and unyielding as the yank of a puppeteer's strings.[break][break]

"We are BETTER than SELF-PITY," another voice hissed inside of her, emphatic in its churning outrage. "We do not stoop to COWARDICE. Do not forget that WE have outlived a thousand other timelines that sought to break US, as the self-righteous engorge themselves with their own good fortune. They know NOTHING of what it means to endure."[break][break]

But I do. I've had no choice but to survive.

[break]

When Elisabeth looked upon Eva Morales again, it was through a haze of discontent that flooded through her like the plumes of smoke that hissed out from Rayquaza's nostrils. The filmy glaze of her own eyes witnessed this woman -- this loathsome, adored creature that the earth had blessed in so many cruelly unjust, arbitrary ways -- and the despair that had built in her burned away into bitterness as Wo-chien weathered the blows meant for her with a SPIKY SHIELD.[break][break]

Here stood Eva Morales. The Head Scientist. The 'Savior' of Hoenn. Once the cherished other half in the League's most high-profile couple. Beloved by all, despised by none.[break][break]

How easy it was to be a champion of good, when the world saw fit to spoil you rotten at every turn.[break][break]

"Could she have lived through the hell we've known?"

[break]

When the fiery inferno surged past the Ruinous Beast towards Elisabeth, countless vines suddenly lashed upwards from the soil like snakes, feasting and thriving on the resentment that this opponent had suddenly inspired in her. They melted away before the heat, for fire was meant to cleanse rot in all of nature's wisdom. Nature, instead, swallowed back this hatred meant to consume her -- choking and sputtering on smoke into ash.[break][break]

But Elisabeth drank in the fumes of it, breathing it in like life-giving air.[break][break]

Tendrils of greenery burst out from the ground to cradle Wo-chien tenderly towards her, its scorched form evoking a rage that shuddered through her whole body.[break][break]

A new name glowed upon the Tablet of Ruins upon its back. One that caused her voice to reverberate with new, terrifying power.[break][break]

"TAKE THIS CURSED EARTH FROM US, THEN!"[break][break]

"ACCEPT YOUR MEAGER VICTORY. ACCEPT YOUR BURDEN OF A WORLD THAT CARES NOTHING FOR YOU."[break][break]

"IF THAT IS THE WAY OF GODS, THEN WE GLADLY ACCEPT THE FREEDOM OF MONSTERS."

[break]

This new GRUDGE swept through her, heady and overpowering as she fled in a thicket of thorns and briars that crawled behind her, denying Rayquaza's fire the ability to prevent their escape.[break][break]

She felt so alive that her mortal body became a restrictive, exhausting thing: a cage of flesh that held her back from pursuing the human prey she wanted so desperately to attack.[break][break]

Elisabeth ran, and ran, and ran. Until the spite couldn't sustain her anymore. Until her legs gave out beneath her.[break][break]

Until she couldn't remember what she had been running from anymore.[break][break]

Until she couldn't remember what it was she wanted to burn.[break][break]

Still, the emptiness remained.

[attr="class","ooc"] Eva Morales[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]