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Luka sits, tall and alert, on the back of her Dragonair.[break][break]

They're a good ways away from the League's closest stronghold, one of several encampments set up to provide supplies and first aid to their forces. Her job is to scout the perimeter, keeping an eye out for any airborne threats. Should Rocket get too close, it’s her responsibility to sound the alarm and distract the opponent while waiting for reinforcements to arrive.[break][break]

Try not to engage, one of her superiors had told her. Keep them busy and wait for our help.[break][break]

Luka understood the meaning well enough. She knows that she’s not all that strong on her own. But with the League's forces spread thin as it is, they need all hands on deck, and scouting seems to be a safe enough job. She and Sakeru are keeping an eye out towards the eastern side, the serpentine dragon cutting through the air with a languid sort of grace, and for a while everything seems clear.[break][break]

It's a brief moment of respite amongst all the chaos, so of course it cannot last.[break][break]

Sakeru cries out in alarm when the threat first appears. Her long, pink body immediately rears up to retaliate, but Luka starts turning her in the opposite direction. "Come on!" she urges, stroking the neck of her mount, "We need to hurry back and—"[break][break]

But their escape attempt is hindered by the attacks coming their way. To avoid them, Sakeru has to fly in the opposite direction of the camp and even then barely manages to evade the pulses of dark energy from their opponent. Her body twists in midair as she fires back a dragon pulse in their assailant's direction, and as Luka gets a closer look at her, she has a sinking suspicion that she's seen this woman before.

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Good reactions from a middle tier evolution, even considering that that was a dragon it was impressive that she managed to dodge with such a limited window. The left head on Rhodium lights up as it spots the pulse of draconic energy heading their way, the reactor within their steel frame hums to life as Steel energy builds and explodes outwards, crashing into the Dragon Pulse and utterly negating it in midair. "Woo! That was a fun opening salvo, I think you're the first person today who hasn't immediately been shot down and presumably killed upon impact with the ground! Good job good job, you've now become the record holder everyone else is gonna have to beat for survival time!" Xenon cheers as she claps for Luka loudly, her Iron Jugulis all the while simply letting out a deep bass growl from its speakers.
[break][break]
"Though I have to ask while you're alive and kicking, on a scale from one to ten how surprised were you by my approach? I'm trying to gather data to figure the best way to instantly kill people in the sky, so far I've got a data pool of zero because everyone else instantly died so your answer is really important here." The woman seems completely and utterly serious about this question as she swipes at a little tablet device she has mounted on Rhodium's central neck, ready to type while she looks at Luka expectantly. "Also have we met somewhere? I don't actually care where or when, I've just got a niggling feeling that you annoy me in some manner and I'm not sure why."
[break][break]

+luka chêne

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"Eh?"[break][break]

Well, this isn't the reaction she expected.[break][break]

In fact, she doesn't know what to think. Luka sits on the back of her Dragonair, utterly flabbergasted by this woman's bizarre behavior. The compliments, the applause, the questions...this woman is a Rocket, right? So why is she treating this like some kind of weird experiment instead of an actual fight?[break][break]

"As if I'd tell you something like that! H-how can you treat someone's life so callously? If Sakeru wasn't so fast, I-I could have died. This isn't a game, you know!"[break][break]

The spark of familiarity is growing— vaguely, she can remember someone she'd fought like this before, months ago in Granite Cave. She'd had the same violent behavior and unhinged personality. And now that she can hear it, there's no forgetting that voice.[break][break]

"I-I beat you once before," she declares, though her tone doesn't sound quite as confident as she had hoped, "And I'll do it again!"[break][break]

The Pokemon Xenon is riding on now is unfamiliar, so she allows Sakeru to take the lead in their battle. Her Dragonair slithers though the air like a serpent, speeding towards Xenon and the Iron Jugulis rather than away. Her tail whips backwards, gaining momentum before it swings forwards with as much force as she can muster, hoping to strike the flying robot with an aqua tail.[break][break]

---

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The applause stops and Xenon tilts her head, confused by Luka's confusion and outrage. "Well of course it's not a game. I don't know what kinds of games you might play, but I'm conducting a very serious experiment centered around how effectively I can squash you Leaguer roaches. But if you don't want to participate in the experiment, I hold no issue with just going back to killing you." Rhodium seems to agree with this sentiment as its engines purr loudly, a lick of flame escaping their closed mouths as they stare at the Dragonair.
[break][break]
Granite Cave, Granite Cave... ah yes, that incident. "Well if you're so confident, lets see if you can finish the job this time huh?" Xenon smiles as she lets Sakeru and Luka approach, watching that Aqua Tail get closer and closer to hitting Rhodium. And at the last moment before impact, the machine twists up and into the sky in an unnatural feat of aerial acrobatics, looping over and behind the duo as those flames turn silvery white. "But this time I've got a clear eye on my future. And the only thing I see is victory."
[break][break]
A bright flash of light escapes the Iron Jugulis's maw as it fires from point blank, triple Flash Cannons slamming into the serpentine dragon with a screech as steel power burns into her scales. This machine was on a whole different level from anything the scientist had displayed in their last fight, and if the look in this woman's eyes was anything to go by, so was Xenon.
[break][break]

+luka chêne

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Oh no.[break][break]

Engaging at such close range had been a mistake. Xenon and her mount cleanly evade their attack and now, there's no way for Sakeru to dodge the incoming retaliation. To her credit, Sakeru manages to twist her snake-like body just enough to avoid one of the flash cannons, but the other two hit at a devastatingly close range.[break][break]

Last time they had fought, this woman had seemed ridiculous, like a cartoon villain. Just when had she become such a serious threat?[break][break]

Luka's eyes go wide as she cries out in concern, though it's drowned out by her Dragonair's screech of pain as the attacks hit. She immediately loses altitude, starting to fall out of the air as Luka clings to her back with dear life. In any other situation, she would have recalled her Pokemon, but airborne as they are, it becomes impossible.[break][break]

She needs to find a way to safely land, or at least change mounts mid-air. But with Xenon on her tail, it'll be nearly impossible. Luka grits her teeth as she tries to think of a plan, but she's never done that well under pressure. Luckily, the calming effects of her sygna suit help- but just barely.[break][break]

The only plan she has is a complete toss-up. If they miss, it's probably over for them. "L-let's bring them down with us," she says, stroking her Dragonair's neck as the dragon continues to spiral towards the ground. Using some of her quickly waning strength, Sakeru opens her mouth and tries to hit the Iron Jugulis with a thunder wave- disabling the robot is likely their only means of escape right now.[break][break]

---

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A clean hit, the fight barely even lasted a minute and already the Ultramodernist had sent yet another soul plunging down into the inky depths below. She can't help but let out a disappointed sigh as she leans over the neck of her beloved Rhodium and watches the girl fall down, one last Flash Cannon charging up just to finish the job before she went to go find another poor victim.
[break][break]
At least that was the plan, right up until she felt that tingle on the back of her neck again.
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A wave of electromagnetic energy slams into the Iron Jugulis and its eyes go dark, engines cutting and altitude rapidly dropping as Xenon's eyes widen along with her smile. "So this is how you struggle and cling to life is it? Very well then, lets see who can hold out the longest!" Where Luka violently flails and gasps for air amidst the storming sea of terror as she faces her death head on, this woman can only scream with joy as she dives down after her, hands rooting around in her jacket for her lifeline with what little time she has left to spare. Pulling out another flying type Pokemon was more than doable, but to do so would be to abandon her beloved Rhodium to death, and she wasn't ready to step off this path to the future yet!
[break][break]
Ten seconds until impact with the ocean, she finds it in her inner left third pocket. A small tube humming with energy, energy she had drained from Rhodium over the course of a month, a perfect pick me up in desperate times like this! She jams the tubing into the central mouth and forces it closed, its eyes blink back to life with only five seconds left to spare. Engines slam back into motion, the Iron Jugulis pushes up as hard as it can and just barely skims the ocean surface, Xenon is back in the air and already searching for Luka to continue the fight. "Now do that again and maybe this time you can finish the job!"
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+luka chêne

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There comes no triumph in the small success of their thunder wave. For a split second, Luka feels bad about sending the other woman spiraling in peril, but that feeling dissipates after more mad rantings follow her down towards the sea.[break][break]

"You...y-you're crazy!" she shouts back, though no amount of insults will help her situation.[break][break]

Her dragonair is getting weaker by the second. Trying to protect her mount while heavily injured is taking an untenable toll on the dragon. As they plunge towards the water, Luka also searches for a way out. Quickly fumbling for the Pokeballs at her waist, she releases her Musharna, followed by—[break][break]

She doesn't get a chance to enact the second part of her escape plan. She's too slow, and both she and Sakeru plunge into the frigid water below.[break][break]

The impact hits them both hard. And unfortunately, Luka feels her Pokemon's body slacken under hers. She kicks to the surface as quickly as she can, well aware that she's a sitting duck if Xenon managed to survive her fall. Luckily, her Musharna understand their peril and quickly shrouds her trainer in clouds of obfuscating dream mist, hopefully creating enough cover that the pair can escape.[break][break]

Gasping for air, Luka's trembling fingers manage to grasp another pokeball- nearly dropping it into the water as she does- and she releases the Vaporeon within. With dream mist clogging her nose and mouth, she clings onto the water type's back and tries to get her bearings. With Xenon in the air like this, a water escape seems their best bet. But what about Sakeru?[break][break]

Dragonair are adept swimmers, but she's now unconscious and sinking fast. Luka can only pray they can survive long enough to rescue her and escape.[break][break]

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In Xenon's book there was no difference between the words Ultramodern and maniac, to be a woman of the future meant discarding all common sense rooted in modernity and pursuing an entirely new set of morals and sense, always pushing the limits of life in chase of the next thrill. And with what she's achieved in such a short period of time to coming to the Hoenn region, can one even claim her to be wrong as she takes down yet another League member in the battle for Mirage Island? Her results truly speak for themselves.
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The executive watches Luka hit the water with a grin, already patrolling around the area where she had splashed down and firing a few more Flash Cannons into the ocean to finish the job, though the quick dream mist that her Musharna had deployed was an effective smokescreen, enough so that most of her shots go very wide without any idea of where the girl actually was. It would only take half a minute for Xenon to get tired of shooting, mentally noting another kill in her black book and flying off in the direction that she had spotted Luka coming from, where she was sure to find many more targets all gathered up in one big group to be exterminated. It wasn't a perfect victory, she had got caught off guard for a brief period and she would need to find a way to negate EMPs like that in the future. But she had won even so, and that's all that matters in the end really. Another step towards the future.
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+luka chêne

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She had failed.[break][break]
She's alive, and her Pokemon survived. But as Luka dives with her Vaporeon to recover Sakeru and return the wounded dragon to her ball, the weight of her defeat smothers her just like the water pressure that engulfs them.[break][break]
When she surfaces again, she can see the Rocket and her Iron Jugulis heading for the very camp she had been tasked to protect. There are others around for defense of course, but she had been given the most basic of missions and failed spectacularly. She taps into her comms to sound the alert, and hopes it doesn't come too late. At this point, it's all she can do.[break][break]
Although that isn't true, is it? She could try and follow Xenon, and put her very life on the line to take this madwoman down. But she isn't. She's letting down the League with her own selfishness, choosing to save Sakeru over those trying to supply the League's forces. They'd already lost the last conflict between the factions, and here she is helping to ensure they fail yet again![break][break]
Her face burns with shame, and the hot tears that prick at the corner of her eyes feel selfish and silly. But at least she feels more resolved, and speeds off with her Vaporeon in the direction Xenon had headed, hoping against hope that maybe, maybe, she can still stop this woman before she wreaks any more havoc.[break][break]
(spoiler warning: she doesn't)[break][break]

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[break]MP total: 700[break]
- 10 MP per IC post (x5)[break]
- 50 MP use a sygna suit in your thread[break]
- 50 MP get your pokemon knocked out[break]
- 100 MP for completing a mission[break]
- 50 MP for participating in a RT battle/mission
- 300 MP for losing a battle[break]

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