All at once, a red tide bloomed up from the sea below.[break][break]

The air itself became choked with resentment as shadows moved under the frothing waves, shifting beneath the red algal blooms. A BARB BARRAGE aimed itself skyward from down below, where Elisabeth and her Overqwil had positioned themselves in the craggy outcroppings of a nearby cove, seeking to strike the Staraptor above.[break][break]

PENELOPE LIVY. She'd recognize her anywhere.[break][break]

The name burning on Wo-chien's back declared her presence as strongly as the GRUDGE that merely viewing her had inspired in the underboss.

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

SPOILER: Click to show

- 10 MP per IC post in a RT Battle/Mission.)[break]
- 50 MP for participation in a RT Battle/Mission.

Aided by the concealment of surprise, the POISON BARB found its mark without fail. It first impaled the avain's front wings, but like a monster taking out a bite, it came for seconds, striking its belly next.
[break][break]
"?!"
[break][break]
Fingers dug into the starpator's back feathers, and within seconds they dropped from the skyline to shore. Coarse sand clawed her arms as she pushed herself up from the ground, red hair flailing all around. Her staraptor was done for: both badly poisoned and crippled. It'll take a trip to the Poke center to get him back up and running again.
[break][break]
Hand to her waist, eyes narrowed, the councilwoman whipped her head back toward the ocean, readied to catch the culprit behind her attack. The answer had blood running cold.
[break][break]
"So you're here," she barked, her voice a crack of lightening. Finally, after all this time, she was here. Flesh and blood, skin and bones, the villain of the story had made her appearance. "I heard your underboss now? Not too surprising - roaches like you always find a way."
[break][break]
A flash of scarlet spat out to her right, and in its midst, an altaria took shape.
[break][break]
"I'm just curious. Did you seduce your way to the top, too? Or did they need a new scape goat for when things go to shit."

[attr="class","ooc"] Elisabeth Fiorelli[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

The vengeful sting of salt and brine hissed through the wind, whipping about the underboss's wild, untamed black curls as she grinned. For how long had she been dancing around this woman like a Rattatta evading a Persian's claws?[break][break]

Masks got so stifling, after awhile.[break][break]

"I see that Kalos and Hoenn have precious little distinction, to stoop to the same baseness of insults and injury. Shall I do the same, Livy? Shall I critique your taste in men, having pursued the likes of a Raticate yourself?"[break][break]

She meant CIAN MAHER, but perhaps the woman would hear it as an insult regarding MATIAS SILPH, instead.[break][break]

"I have been a Rocket Underboss for some time now," she said then, a crook of her finger summoning the algae from the shoreline to creep around her like a semi-circle of slimy red, grasping fingers. "Long before your little game to uncover me succeeded, in fact."[break][break]

Her carmine eyes flashed with irritation intermingled with cruel amusement.[break][break]

"How long have you chased my shadow, Livy, without wondering if the darkness might swallow you whole, too?"[break][break]

Her Overqwil retreated beneath the waves, jumping up to launch a POISON JAB at the newly released Altaira. It had performed such a feat in the labs of one Eva Morales, back when Elisabeth feigned being someone other than who she was.[break][break]

Wo-chien took no action, however, ochre eyes merely staring at the red-haired woman with a naked fascination as it took in the sight of this other Ruinous Avatar, weighing the judgment of its infernal cousin in silence.[break][break]

Curious.

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

SPOILER: Click to show

- 10 MP per IC post in a RT Battle/Mission.) (x2)[break]
- 50 MP for participation in a RT Battle/Mission.

The more she stared at the miasma of black tar-like femininity, the more the imagery drew at her, washing away the pain of battle, replacing it for something more primitive, more instinctual. [break][break]


She flexed her fingers, eyes burning bright against the shadows that coalesced around them. They swallowed their surroundings, muting the world, and leaving only their bodies, their voices, and their raw emotions behind - like shadow puppets swaying against the blank canvas.
[break][break]

Elisabeth's words did more than sting, they burned. They were scorching tar against her skin, bathed in clumps of feathers, all for the soundless audience's endless amusement.
[break][break]

"I should've known. I should've fucking known."
[break][break]

Her voice was a knot of gnarled roots, twisted and brimming with deep grudges.
[break][break]

"I love you."
[break][break]

Liar.
[break][break]

"You're mine."

Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar.
[break][break]

"You act so proud, Elisabeth, but you're still that woman with only her flower shop."
[break][break]

It didn't matter now - all the feelings that once swept her heart were gone. Solidified into clumps of ashes. Forgotten and burnt away. The poison of their shared love was now only a trickle of memory down her cheeks. But...
[break][break]

"Underboss, florist - your story doesn't change! You're just forever the 'poor' widow trying to drag the world down with her, aren't you? "
[break][break]

But that didn't erase the envy that surged; because, for the second time, her love was discarded for another.
[break][break]

Again and again, her life was an endless carousel, full of painted horses and shattered dreams. The more she tried to escape it's cycle, the more the looming darkness enclosed around her. There was no daylight left for those in hell. Even less for those who wield pitchforks themselves.
[break][break]

The altaria took a dive, dodging the POISON JAB, but also the opportunity to meet the strike with one of its own.
[break][break]

"Don't you ever get tired playing the victim?"

Unbeknownst to the avatar, her patron made its own appearance. It circled along her backline, eyes just as curious as its counter part.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Elisabeth Fiorelli [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

"Victim?" she echoed flatly. A bored affectation had entered her words now, as if everything that PENELOPE LIVY had to say not only left her uninterested, but unimpressed by her lack of originality.[break][break]

Her Overqwil matched its mistress's nonchalant mannerisms with its deft evasion of the Altaria's counter-attack.[break][break]

"Tell me, Livy. Did you not ascend to councilwoman by wielding the sob stories you penned to paper?"[break][break]

No such tumult of emotions held their grip on Elisabeth now. She had known many people like PENELOPE LIVY in her life before this one; her only regret was being able to face them as openly as she confronted this one now.[break][break]

"Did you not play the victim in your own way, too, of the poor downtrodden everywoman?"[break][break]

An ambush of an AQUA TAIL struck back, a blade of water slashing towards the avian Pokemon that punctuated the verbal attacks with physical bite.[break][break]

"Or is your memory of that such a fickle thing, now that you have everything you've ever wanted?"[break][break]

Elisabeth's attention shifted towards jade eyes glimmering in the darkness, and her own smile widened with self-satisfaction.[break][break]

"I don't hide what makes me who I am. But you still do, don't you?"[break][break]

A strange, otherworldly tenor overcame her voice, eerie and unsettling in its accusation:[break][break]

"You're ashamed of what we are."

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

SPOILER: Click to show

- 10 MP per IC post in a RT Battle/Mission.) (x3)[break]
- 50 MP for participation in a RT Battle/Mission.

Penelope was oblivious to the truth that laddled the serpent's hisses. The reality of the patron's own change was nothing more than a bear trap still left hidden beneath the leaves. For some onlookers, the piercing slips of silver were enough to draw out its nature, but for a simple vixen chasing her prey, any notice of it was taken as a taunt. A fable no different than one spun to coax children into behaving.
[Break][Break]
It isn't true, she told herself, vehement in her convictions, none of it is true.
[Break][Break]
"That's what separates us."
[Break][Break]
The AQUA TAIL struck, earning itself an ear-piercing squawk. The Altaria folded its wings inward to evoke a ravenous HURRICANE to its defenses.
[Break][Break]
"My beginnings are my strength. For you? They're your weakness. "
[Break][Break]
Her eyes narrowed, her nose crinkled. She was a living, breathing antithesis to the woman who shielded herself in apathy.
[Break][Break]
"You once accused me of seeking vindication; that, for someone like me, truth didn't matter. Only my version of it. But are you any different? You allow this creature to swallow you in the hope of casting revenge on the people who wronged you. But Elisabeth," the coveted lunged for the scorned's gaze, but it found no connection to grasp onto. Elisabeth's interest cradled the set of jade beads in her stead, and for that, something inside her shifted."No one took away your choice. Not Hoenn, Édouard. You did that all by yourself."
[Break][Break]
"You're ashamed of what we are."
[Break][Break]
To the poison that was rung from her words, Penelope's body poised herself to attack. Only, no further movement was allowed. Like a marionette with its strings tugged back, the puppet master evoked its will, forcing her limbs to still, and her ears to listen.
[Break][Break]
"You know nothing. "





[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Elisabeth Fiorelli [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

"You speak of choices?" Elisabeth's face briefly froze between expressions, torn between disbelief and amusement. The latter won out at last, splitting her mouth into a manic fit of cackling that left her breathless. "What do you know of choices?" the underboss demanded, hysterical in her laughter. "You idiotic child. You soft-headed imbecile. You pitiful excuse for a councilwoman."[break][break]

Amusement abruptly melted into biting anger; her disdainful smile turned fanged.[break][break]

"I killed monsters to rise to where I am. And what did you do, Livy? Lie to an impressionable populace about your noble deeds."[break][break]

The HURRICANE brewing around them cast the sea blue-black, bruising it as thrashing winds tore its surface asunder. It heightened Elisabeth's fury, adrenaline pumping through her as she beckoned the creeping algae to rise like hissing serpents, prepared to strike. Her OVERQWIL shivered in the storm's center, retaliating with a DARK PULSE that rippled forth with midnight energy.[break][break]

"Invoke the name of the dead all you want. I chose to kill, because I understood the weight of the few choices I was given."[break][break]

Her eyes narrowed, slits revealing twin rubies that kept the redhead in her sights.[break][break]

"You, however? A councilwoman of a powerful nation? You are positively spoiled for choice."[break][break]

The slimy vines of seaweed launched forward, merciless as they sought to strangle the woman where she stood.[break][break]

"I doubt you're capable of killing me, the way I'll relish killing you."

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

SPOILER: Click to show

- 10 MP per IC post in a RT Battle/Mission.) (x4)[break]
- 50 MP for participation in a RT Battle/Mission.

The two powerhouse clashed in ceremonious commencement.


[break][break]
Out in their peripherals, great blades of whipping air sliced through the incoming ringlets of compressed dark energy. In the wake of each collision, a surge of power extended outward, mirroring small sonic booms , each one unique to its origin.


[break][break]
Then the wave of seaweed encompassed the world as Penelope knew it. In the brief moments between her last words and then, several stalks of the sea grass tore through the space between them, grappling onto both her arms and legs, then neck. Every nerve in her body cried out in fear, but no movements were made. She was locked in place, just as before, with only the glint of jade swaying close behind, left and then right.


[break][break]
"There was always another way," she grunted out, "you chose to kill because you wanted to. Because that's who you are: a monster."
[break][break]
And wouldn't Penelope be the same? If she allowed herself to be swept away, like she did in AQUA, what difference would stand between them? Two souls both lost to the very demons they sought out.
[break][break]
That's what she concluded back then. Back when Gunner Graves offered a solution. A way out of the story being written. 
[break][break]
But as shuddered beneath the gasping strength of the vines, she couldn't help but look back toward the one lifeline that hovered within reach. Its silence painted all the words of the universe and more; do this and you shall be free. Give in and you shall swim. Accept this and you will be feared.
[break][break]
You've done it once before.

[break][break]
Altaria, hearing it's trainer's cries, swiftly disengaged from it's duel to assist. But it wouldn't be enough. Nothing would've been enough to stop the air from escaping her lungs, from her arms from shriveling at her side.


[break][break]
Nothing but--


[break][break]
An upchuck of lava spat from the ground below. It swallowed everything in its path: the woman, the seaweed, even the clawing avian.


[break][break]
When it fell back down, not only had the seaweed been burnt and swallowed away, but so had the woman. For what now stood before The Scorned was not PENELOPE LIVY, nor The coveted. But something different all together.

[attr="class","ooc"] Elisabeth Fiorelli[break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-ditto"]

Of course there had been another way.[break][break]

She'd spent ten fucking years living that other way, and it'd slowly killed her.[break][break]

Seaweed ensnared PENELOPE LIVY in her entirety, punishing her ignorance with its suffocating intent. It drowned her in slime-riddled vines, and Elisabeth felt a sick satisfaction build inside of herself at the sight of the proud councilwoman cocooned in forces beyond her own control.[break][break]

"You aren't strong enough to survive," Elisabeth scoffed, moving to turn away. "For all your talk, you're still so disapp--"[break][break]

Lava bubbled up and surging upwards as the feminine silhouette lost to flames was engulfed in a fiery volcano. The rotted flora collapsed limply to the sands, ash returned to ashes, dust to dust.[break][break]

This was a purging. A rebirth by sacred pyre.[break][break]

Before Elisabeth could react to this change in circumstances, Wo-chien did so for her. Sapphirine light crystallized around the Ruinous Beast's shell, TERASTALLIZING into a Water-type as it moved to deflect oncoming flames with its hulking shell.[break][break]

When ochre eyes met jade, a conspiratorial secret passed between them: an approval, for some unspoken criteria met in this vessel its infernal sibling had chosen.

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

SPOILER: Click to show

- 10 MP per IC post in a RT Battle/Mission.) (x5)[break]
- 50 MP for participation in a RT Battle/Mission.

[attr="class","header"]AWAKE, ARISE

[attr="class","setting"]

Piece by piece, the seaweed fell to the woman's sides, acting as bitter reminders of the constraints that nearly tore apart her existence. Something once so lethal was now reduced to the ash beneath her soles.
[break][break]
And it was all do to the sin that lurked over her shoulder, making quiet conversation with its sibling along the aisle. 
[Break][break]
The woman bore no words to Elisabeth. Like Chi-yu, she only stood silently, taking in the air that had been stolen from her, the life nearly robbed. 
[Break][break]
"You're right. Your choices have amounted to nothing. Underboss, avatar - none of it changes who you really are. Who you will always be." her own words felt like fire against her skin. Each one sent another pulse of magma from where she stood, marching in time with the very heart that sung inside her chest. "Pathetic. Small. Weak. Undeserving."
[Break][break]
Then, in one swift arc, the woman's arm launched forward, firing off a comet of molten lava out toward Elisabeth.
[Break][break]
The Altaria, who'd taken the attack as a signal, took to  the sky. It brandished the fire that now tickled it's wings and took aim to the one left untargeted. Wo-chie.
[Break][break]
Compressed purple energy was released in one DRAGON PULSE. Only, this action served as its final call. A beat after the attack took flight, another one followed the shadows of growing flames. Like all deaths, the initial strike of the blackened arrows earned a loud crunch, then a plea. Then silence. 
[Break][break]
The avian fell from the sky, hitting the ground in crumpled distress. No one would mark its brother; neither his patron nor their pawns. 
[Break][break]

[attr="class","header"]OR BE FOR EVER FALL'N

[attr="class","oocnotes"] +Elisabeth Fiorelli

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

This was never about Elisabeth's choices.[break][break]

That became apparent the longer the underboss stared at her adversary, the seaweed slithering to the ground as venom dripped from Penny's lips with a curling sneer. It made her otherwise beautiful features into something ugly, revealing an ENVY boiling beneath the surface of her facade.[break][break]

An arm arced forward, and the comet of molten lava followed, searing towards Elisabeth with burning intent. A slash of water cut through the trajectory of the molten rock, her OVERQWIL dousing it before it could render harm against its trainer.[break][break]

When the Altaria aimed, Wo-chien snarled, launching forward to blast back the energies of the avian's DRAGON PULSE with jet-black RUINATION, sticky like tar as it expanded outwards to swallow the bird in its unforgiving hold.[break][break]

"You'd dare touch us?" those ochre eyes seemed to flare, watching that impudent Pokemon plummet to its death. "You'd dare think you are worthy?"[break][break]

Elisabeth watched the spectacle in weighed silence, her own emotional state strangely cooling the more Penelope's raged to an inferno around them.[break][break]

"Livy. What is it that you believe you deserve, hm?"[break][break]

To be undeserving meant someone else was deserving.[break][break]

"What is it that I have that you want?"

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

SPOILER: Click to show

- 10 MP per IC post in a RT Battle/Mission.) (x6)[break]
- 50 MP for participation in a RT Battle/Mission.

[attr="class","header"]AWAKE, ARISE

[attr="class","setting"]

Her tongue lashed behind her teeth, serpentine with every flick.
[Break][break]
Altaria's lifeless body slammed into the sand spread out beside her, and while pieces of Penelope craved the instinctual tug to mourn over her loss, every other nerve was screeching otherwise.
[Break][break]
"What is it that I have that you want?"
[Break][break]
Another lash of the tongue, another plunge of her arm, and comet of magma committed to second launch forward.
[Break][break]
"What do I want?"
[Break][break]
Amplified, a secondary barrage of fiery rage followed close behind, plummeting more than just molten lava. Solidified into chunks of crust, dagger-like pieces hid themselves within each stream, adding more weight to the incoming punch.
[Break][break]
"I want you dead, Elisabeth Fiorelli. I want your skull so fucking deep into the ground that your memory no longer bears no weight. I want you eviscerated."
[Break][break]
There is no moment of rest; now was the time to strike and finish what was started. With another kick of her fist into the air in front of her, a third comet was fired off, its aim reckless. Fire and brimstone was all there was to see; it was all The Coveted to see.
[Break][break]
"I want you to BURN for what you did."
[Break][break]

[attr="class","header"]OR BE FOR EVER FALL'N

[attr="class","oocnotes"] +Elisabeth Fiorelli

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

It was like looking into some twisted mirror of herself, the longer she stared into Penelope's hypnotic eyes.[break][break]

This was no longer the woman who had once been a self-professed seeker of truth, nor was she a champion of the everyman uplifted to the highest offices in the land.[break][break]

PENELOPE LIVY was now nothing more than a power-hungry snake, spitting fire instead of venom through her teeth.[break][break]

For all her display of strength and power, there was something pitiable in the way this fellow Ruinous Avatar looked upon her now.[break][break]

The look of someone lost, Elisabeth decided.[break][break]

The comet hurled forward with devastating force, but it shattered on impact against a TERA BLAST that splintered that molten rock in all directions. Blistering steam hissed out from where water struck lava, and Elisabeth took a single step back, watching as Wo-chien weathered the blow with the Tablets of Ruin flaring brightly on its back.[break][break]

"I'll burn eventually, Livy," she said quietly, moving to depart. "We both will. Because we're the same, you and I."[break][break]

It wasn't vines she summoned now. Instead, Elisabeth cupped her hands to her mouth, blowing out a sweet-scented BERSERK FOG that thickened like a cloud on the air. It choked all their surroundings in its hold, erasing all visibility as the Rocket underboss and her Ruinous Beast vanished into the pink expanse.[break][break]

When it faded, both would have long disappeared from view.

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY[break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

SPOILER: Click to show

- 10 MP per IC post in a RT Battle/Mission.) (x7)[break]
- 50 MP for participation in a RT Battle/Mission.[break]
- 100 MP for Mission Completion (3/3 Shore).[break]
- 250 MP for "tying" a RT Battle/Mission.[break]
- 10 MP for knocking out/killing another character and/or their Pokemon.[break]
- 10 MP use terastallization in your thread.[break]
TOTAL: 490 MP.