Neither woman discussed the last time they had been in one another's company.[break][break]

Matters of Rayquaza, Tapu Fini, and Wo-chien remained out of sight and out of mind as they floated through the strangeness of the Ultra Deep Sea, seeking valuable research regarding the Nihilego and Poipole that frequented this unusual place.[break][break]

For that reason, anya fowl -- not Molly Fouller -- accompanied Elisabeth today in her expedition. Just as Underboss Fiorelli had ventured here, and not 'Elisa,' the woman who'd once frequented a bar in Lilycove.[break][break]

"The hatchlings were reported to be near here," Elisabeth stated, her eyes narrowing as they sought to find evidence of the Ultra Beast's nest. She paused as she caught sight of a glistening trail of a familiar venom trailing the undersea floor...[break][break]

Nihilego venom.[break][break]

"We should tread carefully."

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

[break]

02 involve the venomous adhesive of a poipole or naganadel.

it is anya fowl's first time venturing into a realm not her own. she wouldn't do it, even for the sake of her research, as FERNANDO SILPH has told her time and time again she is an asset useful only if she's in one piece. and while she may not feel much of anything, her desire to survive is very much alive. 

but her demotion has come with a cost. she must put her best foot forward, stride with confidence and prove to walsh that she is willing to put something on the line for rocket. 

when the opportunity arose to accompany the underboss to the deep sea, it was as though the fates were gifting her a boon. protection from an avatar and an ally? while simultaneously fulfilling her promise of loyalty to walsh?

she admits, though, as she walks this other realm, that its secrets are tantalizing enough to trump her own trepidations. 

envy follows in her footsteps, ears on the swivel. her lions are safely nestled in their balls. they're not as delicate as the panther and from all of the reports, attention is the last thing they want down here. 

"i've read dossiers on previous expeditions. some of our own have had pokemon inflicted by nihilego poison, but none have been shadowed." it's vexing, to say the least. the first time one of these nihilego had crossed into their worlds, it had changed their pokemon. it had been the foundation for her work. 

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

"I'm familiar," was the underboss's distant answer. "I was one of the first infected cases."[break][break]

Symptoms changed, depending on the unique physiology of the infected target. For her, paranoia had heightened to absurd levels, followed by a survivalist instinct that veered towards murderous.[break][break]

It had almost led her to kill Naomi Sato. She'd be lying if she said she didn't think she'd have succeeded; a fine line had held her back from that step into treason.[break][break]

"What I am less familiar with is your unique area of study." Carmine eyes flitted to ice blue, wondering. "Do you know much of these creatures, then?"[break][break]

As the vista of the false sea expanded, it gave Elisabeth the mental image of a lung: expanding and shrinking with each unheard breath, to a rhythm that she didn't quite understand.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

[break]

28 find signs that the ultra deep sea that you have explored so far seems to be the inside of a large, living organism.

"no," she says. they'd been a means to an end, after all, and she's not even sure they're considered the same as what had emerged from those rifts all those moons ago.

"my product may be unique, but my area of study? hardly not." her thesis papers are lost to time, hidden in a labyrinth of scored names and blighted photographs. "evolution is a broad topic. i just happened to take it one step further."

a pause. "some would say one step back." 

as they move deeper, envy pads closer. the purple fur along her spine is raised. her tail swings and anya notes the way her claws have unsheathed. the cat stops suddenly, hissing at a pustule in the ground. 

anya, gloves donned, squats down and rests fingertips along the earth. only it's not earth. 

"i don't doubt the merit or capabilities of our people, but i was hard-pressed to believe our surroundings are actually alive."

Elisabeth Fiorelli

28 find signs that the ultra deep sea that you have explored so far seems to be the inside of a large, living organism.

☉

"People fear what they don't understand," Elisabeth commented, no judgment to be found in her observation. Her own pursuit of knowledge had led her to understanding nature's many agents of death; she was no purist of scientific thought.[break][break]

While Envy shadowed anya fowl, the Ruinous Beast that served as Elisabeth's patron slithered behind her with a slow, languid pace. Its ochre eyes swiveled curiously from side to side, taking in the bizarre interior of the Ultra Deep Sea as the two Rocket women knelt down to inspect it further.[break][break]

"Hoenn remains a place of fascinating study. It's as much a magnet of disaster as it is of scientific inquiry," she continued, the distant sound of squirming organisms causing her to look up in hopes of finding the rumored hatchlings. "I wonder, do you suppose the Ultra Beasts are some evolution of--?"[break][break]

Her question cut off with a sharp gasp as a stinger struck her from behind, a shadow looming over her as she felt a piercing pain spread throughout the center of her spine with the shock and immediacy of lightning. Blood blossomed like a red flower through her wetsuit as she doubled over in agony.[break][break]

"Fuck," she hissed through her teeth, barely choking back the hurt.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

[break]

24 suffer a grievous or fatal injury or injuries that ends up being a hallucination.

FERNANDO SILPH would probably do much to get as much information on the ruinous beast as possible. all she can do, as she digs around in the earth, is furtively observe the snail as it ponders its surroundings. many of the legendaries have shown an aptitude for human understanding. 

but this one she is unsure of. the nature of its relationship with elisa is a curious one. the two of them move in languid, similar motions, gaze darting in a similar manner. so much of it has assimilated with her.

varying degrees of connection among avatars aren't entirely out of the question, surely, but why her? 

is it a byproduct of tapu fini? two deities splitting a mortal body apart at the seams. 

"people simply fear," she says curtly. "even what they do understand." and yet elisa's sentiment still stands - people understand very little. 

"hm - ? no, i believe they're - ah, elisabeth?" she stands slowly, brushing off stray debris from her digging around. cold eyes flicker down to the hissing and spitting cat at her feet and then back up to the monstrous snail that's placed itself between anya and elisabeth. 

"elisa," she says, a lick of impatience in her voice. "it's a hallucination. get a hold of your mind and tell your beast to stand down."

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

Ah, but then again, she'd never been adept at seeing through illusions, had she?[break][break]

A wave of emotions flooded through Elisabeth, ignited by the stabbing sensation in her gut -- how could we be so careless again, how could we let them strike us so easily? -- before anya fowl's cold command cut through the haze of tumult.[break][break]

"Get a hold of your mind and tell your beast to stand down."

[break]

Bleary eyes blinked open to see the silhouette of Wo-chien towering over her, hissing and spitting at its presumed foe. No, at Anya, she realized belatedly. In the absence of a true opponent, it had taken a stance against the former head scientist, dark energies swirling about the Tablets of Ruin that served as its shell.[break][break]

"Cease immediately," Elisabeth ordered, though the sound came out more plaintive and pleading than truly commanding. Part of her recognized she did not order this beast; it ordered her, as freya morningstar had all too recently reminded her. "Nothing harms me, don't you see? It's an illusion."[break][break]

Ochre eyes flickered with uncertainty, turning from one woman to the other, as Elisabeth brought her hands away from her chest. No blood stained her palms, despite the way it had seemed to flow from her wound moments before.[break][break]

The RUINATION coalescing about Wo-chien abruptly dissipated, a click of displeasure announcing its concession as it oozed onwards once more. A distant disapproval settled in her bones, every insecurity she'd ever harbored seemingly exacerbated as the Ruinous Beast punished her for fooling it so openly.[break][break]

"Were you not so willing to kill, the last time a delusion claimed you?"

[break]

Her mouth felt suddenly dry, and Elisabeth swallowed thickly, the previous topic of conversation completely wiped from her mind. Not that it mattered.[break][break]

The nearby shrieks of hatching Nihilego revealed they had succeeded in their quest, and that perhaps it'd be better if they hadn't.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

[break]

🗺️ utilize wo-chien in a pivotal way.[break]
24 suffer a grievous or fatal injury or injuries that ends up being a hallucination.[break]
26 experience a clutch of ultra beast eggs hatching and the horrific newborn forms of nihilego or poipole emerging. protective parent ultra beasts will mercilessly protect them.

elisabeth is fraying at her seams, which comes as no surprise. anya's own experience with the bond between avatar and patron is lacking, though she'd glimpsed transgressions between fernando and tapu fini. the mermaid had, at one point, even threatened her when anya threatened to intervene.

which led her to an exemplary conclusion: patrons hold a  leash to their avatars. which is a shame. she thought, if anyone could overcome such a dynamic, it would be her flower. 

anya's distaste is palpable and one could easily mistake it for the snail crawling away from her, but it rests with elisabeth. how remarkably human she is now, wrought with anxieties and drowning under the weight of her cumbersome emotions. 

envy's spitting does not cease, despite the legendary's aggression passing. it's a few seconds later that the noise of cracking eggshells reaches anya's ears. around them, ferns are suddenly swathed by drifting tentacles. light white bells float up through the air. 

envy tilts her head and yowls. anya looks up. three massive nihilego bear down upon them, tentacles outstretched towards the intruders. 

"taunt them please, darling," anya says. the liepard swats her tail. a taunting shadow ripples upward and the tentacles turn away from anya and elisa, leaving anya a window to release another pokeball. 

her fennekin totters, assesses the situation, and immediately begins constructing a light screen around her trainer. 

"i suggest we move out of the nest," anya says flatly.

Elisabeth Fiorelli

☉

All around them, Nihilego encroached on their surroundings, drifting in and out like sinister white lanterns ghosting through the dim and dark.[break][break]

Don't let them touch you, she reminded herself, jaw tightening as she took a step back. As she did so, Wo-chien moved forward, like a knight castling its king on one of her father's chessboards. It loomed between the Purrloin and the Fennekin, emanating a darkness of RUINATION that cleaved through the worst of the impending horde.[break][break]

Then sapphirine light erupted around the Ruinous Beast's shell, shimmering and shattering as TERASTALLIZATION manifested in its shift towards Water-type alignment. Beautiful and terrible aquamarine energy burst forth in a TERA BLAST batting back the fascinating horrors from their hatchlings, which mewled with unsettling cries all around Elisabeth's feet.[break][break]

One egg, however, remained unhatched.[break][break]

So much of her humanity had been exploited and exaggerated by Wo-chien. Her spite. Her anger. Her resentment. But this morbid kernel of curiosity felt entirely and wholly her own, untouched by its infernal designs, as she let herself pocket the Nihilego egg for her own. It felt discomfortingly smooth to the touch, sticky, and off-putting.[break][break]

"Lead the way out, then," Elisabeth said, moving to flee with the woman beside her out of this undersea hell they'd stumbled into. Deep in her pocket, a stolen life wriggled and pulsed with impatience to be unleashed on the world.

[attr="class","ooc"] anya fowl[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

[break]

TuRHSWt5

[break]

🗺️ utilize wo-chien in a pivotal way.[break]
26 experience a clutch of ultra beast eggs hatching and the horrific newborn forms of nihilego or poipole emerging. protective parent ultra beasts will mercilessly protect them.[break]
🗺️ SPECIAL HUNT: ELISABETH FIORELLI will be able to encounter and catch a NIHILEGO or POIPOLE (one or the other); they may reflavor this to a stolen egg that will hatch on their own terms.

envy's limber form slinks low to the ground. the nihilego are invariably drawn away; an escape would be clean, at this point. for the most part. anya trusts that the cat would be able to escape on her own. and if she couldn't? 

then she would be replaced. 

her personality traits, quirks, etc. those would be different. learned. but a body is a body - fur is fur and meat is meat and everything is chemical interaction, atoms buzzing against their restraints, aching to fracture. 

what better example of self-immolation than the snail that crowns its body with putrid water. a wave of ruination sprays about it. envy hisses, clawing away from the tide, and in three powerful strides, makes her way back to anya's side. 

anya scrutinizes elisabeth. she watches the nervous tick in her jaw, the tightness of her eyes, an impulsive decision written all over her face. just waiting for the treasure. and there it gleams before her, a rounded egg, translucent. there is a marking on the creature's bell, a scar rippling along its damaged membrane 

and what they'll discover later? that its own toxins nearly killed it. too potent, cast aside from the egg sac to ensure the survival of the others.

"oskva, light the way."

Elisabeth Fiorelli
G3csaEwK

☉