II. THE COVETED

POV: PENELOPE LIVY

[break]

"I want you dead, ELISABETH FIORELLI. I want your skull so fucking deep into the ground that your memory no longer bears weight. I want you eviscerated."[break][break]

"I want you to BURN for what you did."[break][break]

- ROT, PENELOPE LIVY

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1181081910198403152/1189759233160380527/DANGANRONPA_OST__-1-12-_Desire_for_Execution.mp3?ex=659f54a1&is=658cdfa1&hm=2ebdb8419b263f8418dc3d3507b4350ac3218a36481d56ff78e3d918276e2717&[/player][break]

^{"Desire for Execution" | Danganronpa OST | Masafumi Takada}

[break]

THEN:

EVER GRANDE CITY PRISON, outside Fiorelli's cell.

[break]

[break][break]
You still remember the last time that bitch smiled at you, dragging her face against the bars of her prison with unsettling, manic laughter.[break][break]

"Does it help you sleep better at night, Livy?" the captive underboss had taunted you. "Telling them I'm the reason that Lopez is dead, and not you."[break][break]

"Liar," you hissed, taking a menacing step towards her cage. "All you do is lie. No one will believe you."[break][break]

"But we know the truth, don't we? That I did nothing to trick you at all."[break][break]

"I wasn't myself," you repeated with full conviction. Your rebuttal was a threat. "I lost control. You made me lose control."[break][break]

Her infuriating grin only widened as she pressed her face between the bars.[break][break]

"Oh, Livy. How funny it will be when I die, and you have no one left to blame for your own shortcomings. I am so hoping I get to see it from beyond the grave."[break][break]

LIAR.

[break]

You should have wrapped your hands around her scrawny little neck. You should have ended it right then and there, fingers curling about her throat until that unbearable cackling sputtered and died out, scorch marks hissing out from where your touch scalded her. Instead you glared at her with eyes that held more power than she was worth expending.[break][break]

She was a living corpse, you'd told yourself. She wasn't worthy of your rage.[break][break]

"You'll be dead soon enough," you reminded her. You were impressed by the calm in your voice, pleased at the way you kept the unbridled fury inside your mind invisible and locked away. "I'm not the only one looking forward to it, either. Silph's been counting down the days."[break][break]

"Oh?" This note of curiosity sang with keen amusement. She'd always been a crazy bitch. "Which one?"[break][break]

"Doesn't matter," you shrugged, a familiar and vicious emotion coiling inside you at the sight of her ever-present smile. How you boiled and burned with the desire to throttle her. "Take your pick."[break][break]

But she never managed to choose, did she? That witch played with so many people, but now, she finally got to experience what it was like to be discarded and thrown aside.[break][break]

She would be nothing more than trash, that beautiful face thrown out and left to decay and rot as a feast for maggots and worms.[break][break]

Fitting karmic punishment for such a vain creature, you'd thought.[break][break]

But maybe now, as you beheld this ghost that inexplicably was possessed of flesh and bone, you could correct fate.[break][break]

The true karmic punishment had always been killing her with your own two hands.[break][break]

---

[break]

NOW:

Within the dilapidated HNN building.

[break]

[break][break]
"Well, look who got spat out back from hell. Long time no see, Fiorelli."[break][break]

Your faithful spies -- ollie morales, paxton concordas, Gunner Graves -- told you about the blonde devil's reappearance. You don't oversee all of Hoenn now, but this corner of it is still your territory. Envy inspires loyalty as much as fear, and you're discovering it proves a stronger bond than the League's laws ever did.[break][break]

You didn't want to believe it at first, that Fiorelli had somehow slithered out of your collective grasp. But then the glee set in. The knowledge that you could take what's finally yours.[break][break]

How amusing that you'd find her at the desk of your old nemesis BARNABY FINCH in the HNN Building. Arceus, that quaint rivalry feels like a lifetime ago.[break][break]

There is no HNN now, no HBS, and for that matter, no League to govern you. No Rocket either, as far as you're concerned. Those labels stopped meaning something a long time ago, back when Ever Grande City burned to the ground. And it's not as if they were ever loyal to you, were they? FERNANDO SILPH, freya morningstar, even dahlia goode had ultimately looked down on you.[break][break]

Ruination had changed everything.[break][break]

"Wasn't it enough that we let the world burn? Came all the way here to watch it with me? Didn't peg you as the sentimental type."[break][break]

This time it's you who grins, wider and wider and wider. The confusion on her face makes you think of a frightened Bunneary caught in your snare. You savor that look, that brief flash of terror, because you've been owed that and so much more.[break][break]

"Don't look so surprised, Elisabeth. As if you weren't there. As if we didn't commit that atrocity together. Your little victim act never worked on me, remember?"[break][break]

You spit at her, and your saliva burns everything in its path -- a hiss of warning that catches fire on old newspaper. It takes only moments for the wildfire to spread. Dusty fire alarms sing out, but there is no one left to put out the flames.[break][break]

"I know exactly what you are."[break][break]

Your Avatarship comes like breathing to you now, and with a muse like Elisabeth Fiorelli, how could it not? Old ENVY burns anew, white-hot and searing as it pulses through your bloodstream with newfound life. Behind you, two familiar jade eyes watch in silence. This is no puppeteer dangling a pawn anymore.[break][break]

You both understand one another.[break][break]

YOU UNDERSTAND SHE HAS TO BURN.

[break]

Magma coagulates seemingly out of thin air, swirling into a comet that you fire with a pounding of your fist towards that cowering, pathetic woman. She ducks under a desk, rolling out of harm's way as more and more of the building begins to burn. She's protesting something -- good god, is she really trying to proclaim her innocence even now? -- and you hurl another comet at her, enraged.[break][break]

"Fight me!" you scream, infuriated by the lack of Pokemon at her side. "Tapu Fini, Wo-chien, I don't give a damn which god still takes pity on you, but don't you fucking hold back on me!"[break][break]

Another comet fires. And another. And another. The entirety of this place is an inferno, and you its satanic ruler.[break][break]

"KILL ME, OR I'LL KILL YOU. THAT WAS WHAT WE WERE DESIGNED FOR, WASN'T IT? TO RUIN EACH OTHER?"

[break]

This time, the stricken look on her ashen face as she scrambles away from the fire makes you laugh. Oh, it's so obvious now, isn't it? Oh, how could you not have known?[break][break]

"They abandoned you, didn't they? Your two gods both abandoned you. Hahaha. Hahaha!" You keel over, unable to stop the laughter bubbling up like lava in your throat. "You should have killed me when you had both. Looks like it'll be execution for you after all."[break][break]

You take your time as a river of fire lassos around her, cornering her like a rat in a cage. You've waited so long to feel anything worth living for again, haven't you? You missed this, playing Persian and Rattatta with a foe worth despising.[break][break]

Maybe you could keep her alive, you think to yourself, if only to enjoy the possibility of murder, later.[break][break]

But then the ceiling shakes. Dust falls, scattering with pieces of plaster and drywall. Shadow swallows the room whole, despite the fires burning all around you.[break][break]

You recognize the flash of cobalt blue when you meet that avian's gaze, and ENVY burns brighter and fiercer than ever before as you scream, running towards the inky wings that blot everything out in oppressive darkness.[break][break]
"No, no, NO! Not again. NOT AGAIN." You dash forward recklessly as she disappears into the winged shadows, and tongues of flame dance harmlessly around you only by the grace of your patron. "YOU COWARD. YOU FUCKING COWARD! COME BACK AND FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED."[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH.[break][break]

Of course it was that fucking man, with the fucking patron that should have been yours.[break][break]

You pummel the ceiling with a burst of flame, but it's too late; they've vanished, and nothing but an empty sky stares back at you. Mocking you with the void that all this Ruination has left behind.[break][break]

You couldn't even save kyle lopez when it counted, could you?[break][break]

You sink to your knees in wailing frustration, tears stinging your eyes for reasons you don't quite understand.[break][break]

"It's not my fault... None of this was my fault..."[break][break]

Indignation flares with raw woundedness, and again your voice tears out from your throat as the building shakes around you, ablaze with your anger.[break][break]

"IT'S YOUR FAULT. IT'S YOUR FAULT, FIORELLI! ALL OF IT IS YOUR FAULT!"[break][break]

You don't even remember why anymore. It's all a haze of green flame now, its initial foundations washed away by smoke and ash.[break][break]

But the feeling she wakes in you? That envy that tightens around your heart until it's close to bursting in its coils?[break][break]

Dead or alive, it never stopped haunting you.

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

III. THE RAVENING

POV: BARNABY L'OISEAU

[break]

In those eyes that regarded him with such sheepish love, all BARNABY FINCH could see was the lamb reflected in their dark depths: meek, complacent, trusting. Again and again she found herself here, offering herself up for slaughter to those who would take advantage.[break][break]

Sacrificial in such a masochistic way.[break][break]

Would she ever learn?[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH hoped not, at least not when it came to him.[break][break]

- LE LETHE, BARNABY FINCH

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1181081910198403152/1190072443377832066/Power-Haus_-_Mike_Romanyshyn__Christian_Reindl_-_Lost_Inside.mp3?ex=65a07854&is=658e0354&hm=1a317a66f258211c1c03695b2e0de2a02f48d6d60a017f7ed61f6eba682506ba&[/player][break]

^{"Lost Inside" | Power-Haus, Mike Romanyshyn, & Christian Reindl}

[break]

THEN:

MAUVILLE HILLS, Barnaby Finch's Penthouse.

[break]

[break][break]
"It's a risky plan," you said with a disapproving click of your tongue. "I don't like it. And I don't like that you're working with the Craven, of all Rocket's Avatars, to ensure your rise to power."[break][break]

Those two Ruinous Beasts had bonded too closely as of late. It concerned you. Ting-Lu's Avatar was no more a true kindred spirit to Elisabeth than fern delaney was to her as Tapu Koko's Avatar.[break][break]

"Reconsider," you urged her, kindly at first.[break][break]

"I'm not asking for your approval, Bee," was her sharp and immediate retort. "I'm informing you as a courtesy."[break][break]

She'd gotten bolder since the Ruination, you noticed. More irritable. Quick to flare to temper.[break][break]

The lamb got harder to find in her by the day, but you knew it was still there, buried in the Lycanroc's pelt she'd lost herself in.[break][break]

"People want you dead," you reminded her. "More than usual. It'd be wise to stay under the radar."[break][break]

"People are looking for a leader with Walsh's absence." She sounded almost petulant, and it was an ugly sound, coming from her. "Why not me? Why shouldn't I rule over, I don't know, Cross?"[break][break]

"Because Cross is a slave to Rocket, and you, mon fleur--" (are a slave to selfish passion) "--are too independently-minded for such a role. Maybe Cillian Quinn could rise, maybe THEO BECKETT."[break][break]

Maybe you, if the pieces were in position to your favor, but you know better than to take the reins during such tumult and strife. You don't want to rule a broken kingdom.[break][break]

"You need to rebuild trust first, Elisa."[break][break]

"I am not asking for your advice!" she snapped at you -- a mistake, one she'd made far more often with you these days.[break][break]

Your hand tightened around her wrist in gentle warning, fragile and breakable in your iron grip as your fingers sharpened into talons.[break][break]

"Then don't come to me with your petty ambitions, Fiorelli. I am not your confessional."[break][break]

You are her better.

[break]

Avatarship had elevated you beyond any superiority she might have entertained herself as having over you.[break][break]

The Galarian Moltres had made clear a truth that had been self-evident to you all along.[break][break]

"Cease this nonsense," you warned her with a coldness she'd rarely witnessed in you, "before someone else makes you. The timing is wrong. Rush your way into power, and you invite disaster upon yourself."[break][break]

"Oh?" she sneered, daring to wield that mocking tenor against you like a knife. "Or what, mon oiseau?"[break][break]

Such flagrant misbehavior. She never did learn, did she?[break][break]

"CEASE," you echoed in a voice she knew, but still had never heard from you like this before. She'd never borne the weight of it, like so many other victims of yours had.[break][break]

Psionic pressure built behind her eye sockets, casting stars in her vision that blinded her with a sharp cry. Your grip on her wrist remained firm, denying her a release from the agony pounding through her skull.[break][break]

"CEASE," you had commanded, and like a marionette whose strings suddenly slackened, she did. Only then did the magnetic power diminish from your words; only then did your hand become flesh and blood instead of feathers and talon, soft against her own.[break][break]

"How could you?" she whispered, her pupils no longer dilated and wild. Her voice broke. The lamb had returned, crawling timidly out to emerge once more. "I never once used Fini's mist upon you. How could you use your power on me?"[break][break]

What hypocritical woundedness, from a woman who used others so thoroughly and carelessly.[break][break]

"Because you don't listen to me," you replied with a patience she increasingly didn't deserve. "And because you're intent on getting yourself killed."[break][break]

You circled a thumb against her knuckle, showing your benevolence and forgiveness for her childish tantrum, only for her to flinch and hiss at your approach.[break][break]

"Don't touch me!" she snarled, running away as she always did. She'd never seemed capable of overcoming her own cowardice. "Don't speak to me. Don't even look at me. How could you?"[break][break]

The bitterness of that betrayal lingered in the air as she fled, echoing in the hallways of your mind as the last thing she ever said to you.[break][break]

She didn't listen to you, proud little thing that she was. She ran blindly into the trap the League had planted for her, with that traitor's aid.[break][break]

You always, always had known better than her. That poor fool.[break][break]

Still you mourned her, you think, more than the others ever did. They paraded her corpse as a rallying call to arms, letting her become a pitiful symbol to justify their lust for power.[break][break]

And you joined them, because you desired power, too.[break][break]

You tell yourself she would have done the same.[break][break]

---

[break]

NOW:

A secluded place lost in the cityscape.

[break]

[break][break]
She's not your Fiorelli.[break][break]

Small distinctions betray her. The startlement that melts into abject relief when she recognizes your face. The trusting way she wraps her arms around you as you make your escape from that burning building. The fondness that still glimmers in her eyes.[break][break]

Your Fiorelli stopped loving you a long time ago.[break][break]

That makes this woman a stranger to you. One who knows far, far much more about you than you're comfortable with a stranger knowing.[break][break]

But you smile. You're practiced at this, feigning a comfort you don't feel. Years of being a celebrity taught you that much.[break][break]

"You didn't know I was an Avatar," you observe as you lead her into your secluded hideaway, and she hesitantly nods, unsure how to take ink-black wings that have shrouded you like a feathered cloak. They vanish in an instant as you descend, evaporating away like Darkrai's shadows into the ether. "The Galarian Moltres of this universe chose me. And you? Did Tapu Fini or Wo-chien bless you in yours? Or Celebi, perhaps?"[break][break]

You need to understand how dangerous she is. Not all versions of Elisabeth Fiorelli will prove useful to you. Even your universe's version of her exhausted her worth sooner than you'd hoped she would.[break][break]

But just like before, in a Mauville Hills penthouse where she unraveled before your very eyes, this Fiorelli confesses far more than she should to you. She tells you enough of herself to satisfy your concern.[break][break]

She reveals that you are dealing with the Wooloo, and not the wounded creature who bites at anyone foolish enough to draw near.[break][break]

"When you were visited by Celebi, you entered different universes. Different timelines." You pause, letting her memory catch up to yours. "This one is further along than your own. This Hoenn does not escape Ruination." Another pause. "You do not escape an early death here, either. But the other three Ruinous Avatars remain."[break][break]

She'd already met one, PENELOPE LIVY the Coveted, who forms her own coterie of devotees from both the remainder of the League and those aghast at Rocket's current brutality. The Craven vanished to never be found, afraid of retaliation from the last of the quartet, Rocket Boss jayden cross. That man had transformed in a remarkably ruthless way, and you'd watched it happen overnight, never breathing a word of treason or doubt. You were too cunning for that.[break][break]

But Jayden's moniker of 'The Cursed' has proven to be a prophecy for him, and ultimately, for the region.[break][break]

How much to tell her? The future can be muddied with too much knowledge. Then again, it's not your future, is it? What do you care what happens in her world? Her Barnaby L'oiseau is a stranger to you, too.[break][break]

She's proven she can be selfish, hasn't she? Maybe you ought to let her flounder in the unknowing, just as she once let you flounder in yours, but that's an unhelpful thought.[break][break]

"What is it you want?" you ask instead. Her answer is predictable enough. She wants to leave.[break][break]

You can't blame her. Everyone here wants to leave, don't they? Your universe is far from an inviting one. Celebi once taunted you with portals that led you to far, far better outcomes, but you'd chosen to stubbornly remain in this one and avoid that siren song of temptation.[break][break]

Or had you? You'd chosen her, and she'd chosen to die and let the world rot with her. The League misunderstood so much about her, but the title they'd assigned her as Tapu Fini's Avatar, "The Siren," had been apt enough.[break][break]

You feel your fingers tighten into a fist, nails sharpening into talons that bury themselves into your palm.[break][break]

"You'll have more difficulty, given that your patrons didn't follow you," you say instead, glancing over your shoulder at her. It leaves her vulnerable. It leaves her not an especially useful ally. "You said this Father Winter promised you an escape, but I have not seen him once in this world. And I have eyes and ears everywhere in this region."[break][break]

It was how he had found her, snooping around his old HNN office in an attempt to educate herself on this world and to reunite with him. One of the far more curious things his Cutiefly had ever reported.[break][break]

"Neither Rocket nor the League can be relied upon, you realize? Both sides benefit from your death. They will not see you as the anomaly that you are, but as a risk to their ongoing battle for dominance and superiority."[break][break]

Her silence conveys her acceptance. She's come to the same conclusion.[break][break]

Being seen with her now is a risk for you too.[break][break]

"Given that obstacle, who do you believe might yet be an ally? I have little to offer you in your search."[break][break]

The answer she gives is an equally foolish one. You tell her so. But you forget, sometimes, how few relationships she has ever managed to keep in this region.[break][break]

And again, why does it matter to you if the Land's Wrath swallows her whole? At least this version of her would get to choose the way she died.[break][break]

Even if it was to the Outcast of Hoenn.[break][break]

Even if it was to MATIAS SILPH.

[attr="class","ooc"] BARNABY FINCH

[attr="class","pkmn"]

IV. THE VOLATILE

POV: MATIAS HERRERA

[break]

The intimacy between them strengthens their connection but it is the final message that seals them together; that binds them to a life of suffering.[break][break]

It is up to them, however, to make others suffer more.[break][break]

'We will punish the world.'[break][break]

Not good enough.[break][break]

'We will ruin it.'[break][break]

-BABYLON, MATIAS SILPH

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1181081910198403152/1196537408137728080/Rurouni_Kenshin_Kyoto_Taika_Hen_OST_Unmei_-_Meikai_No_Kodou_-_Naoki_Sato.mp3?ex=65b7fd4c&is=65a5884c&hm=5eba067ed66279bdcf5e36f4aae11dfe4ac23fb98f60c3152d528628e36fd666&[/player][break]

^{"Unmei - Meikai No Kodou" | Rurouni Kenshin Kyoto Taika Hen OST | Naoki Sato}

[break]

THEN:

ROUTE 121, Matias's ranch.

[break]

[break][break]
The Red Shard glittered in her hands, begging you to seize its power for yourself. It arrived as promised, supposedly delivered to you without strings. She'd been so evasive when you asked for it before, but she surrendered it to you now as if it had taken nothing at all to bring it to you.[break][break]
It felt off. She felt off.[break][break]
"Why are you giving this to me now," you couldn't stop yourself from asking. Suspicion tempered your enthusiasm, even as the Red Shard pulsed in your hand with its exhilarating strength and power. "What, you wanted to wait for a confession first?"[break][break]
Soft laughter answered you, deflecting and evasive as she wound herself tighter around you. "If I loved you, Matias, I'd never tell you so. Surely you know me well enough by now to understand that?"[break][break]
Then she caught the severity in your gaze, and the laughter trailed off. Something in her sobered, realizing you weren't in the mood to play games.[break][break]
Everything you thought you wanted felt so impossibly close, but that only made you question how much you could trust it.[break][break]
She'd never made any of this easy for you. Not until now.[break][break]
"Walsh is gone. There's a void left in Rocket, and I intend to fill it."[break][break]
This you could believe.[break][break]
Her green eyes met yours, viperous in their gleam, and you understood the avarice in them for what it was. Like you, she craved power. But unlike you, she was too weak to stand alone.[break][break]
"You promised me Groudon, once. When the time comes, I'll need you."[break][break]
"I won't fight for Rocket," you reminded her. "But I will fight for you. I will fight for us."[break][break]
Your Rocket will be nothing without me, was the unspoken contract as the Red Shard dissolved into your flesh. I will let you rule, if you let me command.[break][break]
The Primal Energy mapped out a new landscape of markings on your skin, and you felt her fingers trace each glyph, her breath warm against you as she curled her body closer to yours.[break][break]
Even so, your voice didn't lose its steeliness of resolve.[break][break]
"Don't act without me. You can't do this by yourself."[break][break]
"I won't," she lied, and you believed her.[break][break]
But that had been before the cost of Ruination.[break][break]
That had been before the death of kyle lopez, and the capture of his murderer.[break][break]
"WHERE IS SHE?" you'd roared at the League, and the faces that looked back at you said nothing at all. Distrust painted them all against you, whispers of 'Tapu Fini' and 'compromised' following you as you made your way inside the League HQ of Ever Grande City.[break][break]
They thought you wanted to save her. Tch. If only they could feel the rage that burned inside of you, desperate to be released.[break][break]
They killed her before she could answer to you for all her sins.[break][break]
So your PRECIPICE BLADES demanded that everyone else answer for her.[break][break]

---

[break]

NOW:

MT. CHIMNEY, mountain summit.

[break]

[break][break]
War invigorates you. War gives your HATRED another reason to burn.[break][break]
Kanto had taught you to act when others shrank back, weakened by their own idealism. Champion Michael Navidson and Elite Four Greyson Connors had called you a monster, but you're just doing what has to be done.[break][break]
No one else is depraved enough. That's why they need you, despite how much they hate you.[break][break]
The earth split and broke apart in the blistering heat of your DESOLATE LAND as you declared war back against Rocket and anyone who dared to get in your way. You didn't care who you killed. Rockets. Leaguers. They all deserved to die.[break][break]
Nothing frightened you now. Not Necrozma's Avatar, Zev Harcourt, who sent most of the League screaming in terror. Not the Ruinous leader of Rocket, jayden cross, and the unending winter he'd plagued upon the once-tropical coastal region. Not dahlia goode and what remained of her pathetic League, which had crumbled apart when Ever Grande City burned to the ground.[break][break]
Besides, what could anyone possibly take from you? kyle lopez, the only person capable of grounding you and the last hope this region had of peace, was dead.[break][break]
Elisabeth Fiorelli, the last woman you loved, had killed him before the League had killed her. Or so you thought, until now.[break][break]
You hadn't expected this invitation. Of course you've known about the Galarian Moltres and its Rocket Avatar, BARNABY FINCH; at any other time, the sight of the blue-eyed and dark-haired man would be enough to send you into a frenzy.[break][break]
You've always planned to kill the man she'd secretly cared for. She deserves to suffer the way you have every day after Kyle's death, even if it's only in the afterlife.[break][break]
But having her here in front of you changes your perspective. Having her here changes everything.[break][break]
"Fucking explain yourself," you snarl at the woman who'd impossibly emerged amidst feathers and shadow, her companion departing unacknowledged. "Go ahead. Explain. Couldn't handle Ruination so you fucked off somewhere?" A tremor shivers through the ground, your impatience only just barely restrained as you wait for a reply. One Precipice Blade to the heart would be all it would take to earn vengeance.[break][break]
You can't be short-sighted, though. This is too important. There's so much you still need to know.[break][break]
"Convenient, being from another universe. Thing is, I don't believe you. And even if I did, you know what? You're still the same selfish bitch you always were." You bark out a laugh drenched in venom. Your words come out fanged and cruel. "This is so fucking typical. You need me, is that it? You're here because you need me to help you?"[break][break]
It's incredible PENELOPE LIVY didn't kill her already. You wonder what would happen if anyone else encountered her here. Would Eva Morales have spared her? Or FERNANDO SILPH, even?[break][break]
But none of that matters now, and you trail off before anger colors your words again, flaring up like a roaring flame.[break][break]
"Why did you do it, florist? If anyone could understand why you killed kyle lopez--" And here you gave yourself an iota of release, allowing a PRECIPICE BLADE to spike close enough to threaten her neck. "--it'd be you, wouldn't it? No matter which Elisabeth you are, you're still you."[break][break]
It's an inescapable trap. There are no correct answers to this question.[break][break]
There is no acceptable reason to kill Kyle. Not for you.[break][break]
"I didn't ask for an apology, Elisabeth. Apologies don't bring back the dead."[break][break]
She's backed against the wall, literally and figuratively, and that's when you start to notice the imbalance between you. It doesn't make sense, so you test that theory with another step forward and another PRECIPICE BLADE that locks her in place. It only confirms your suspicions.[break][break]
You've fought her here before. You know she can summon vines even in this hellish place. You know her mist isn't limited to the coasts, no matter what garbage your brother fucking told the League.[break][break]
So why? Why isn't she fighting back?[break][break]
You wrap your hands against her throat, and she stares up at you with wide green eyes, no retaliation to be found in their emerald depths. Half of her seems resigned to die here, and it disgusts and confuses you all at once.[break][break]
"I asked you to spare one fucking person," you say, and you hate the way your voice betrays your hurt, clenching your jaw as if that will hold the emotion back. "Did you think with him dead, Groudon would finally be yours? That I'd only belong to you?"[break][break]
You knew. You think you always knew that was her reasoning, because you were so alike.[break][break]
She couldn't stand for someone else to have more power over you than her.[break][break]
Belatedly you notice the way that the woman before you is suffocating for air, and you release her throat, letting her cough life back into her lungs. You hate her for breathing, for being the one to resurrect instead of him.[break][break]
Hadn't he been supposed to be unkillable, once? She'd always been the weak one you had to look out for, improvising on the battlefield and making enemies everywhere she went. You were alike, and that's why you'd humored all her faults, and why you find yourself even understanding this most unforgivable one now.[break][break]
"Do you deny it?" you ask her, and somehow the disdain in this question comes out calm. If she denies it, you decide you'll kill her. There's no point in speaking with a liar. "Do you deny this is what you wanted?"[break][break]
Her hand strays to her throat, tending to a collar of flowering bruises as she struggles to respond.[break][break]
She says something faint. You lean in, straining to hear her. Your foreheads touch, and an unwanted memory of another time in this burning volcano enters your mind, of different confessions in far different circumstances.[break][break]
Finally, her voice takes shape, and words whisper back to you:[break][break]

"...I didn't want to be alone."

[break]
Her selfish confession takes up all the air between you. She looks up at you with imploring silence, and you want to laugh. Aren't you alone now? Didn't you even get passed over in Kyle's death?[break][break]
His Terrakion to noah faber. Ho-oh's blessings of the sacred beasts bestowed upon men like Josh Devlin who utterly despise you. Even the title of Champion went to a man who loathes all that you are.[break][break]
"So we're both alone now. All so that your misery has some company. Fuck, you're so..."[break][break]
Greedy.[break][break]
Eva Morales would have never done this to you. She'd loved you in a way you'd never be loved again, probably, but had it ever been love for you? Had she understood the monster you truly were, or just chosen to ignore it?[break][break]
At least when this woman looks at you, she sees the person you truly are.[break][break]
Just as you see the monster she is, worse than the League ever believed her to be.[break][break]
"Why aren't you fighting me?" you challenge her, your hand yanking her chin firmly to meet your stare. "Do you want me to kill you for what you did? Do you think that undoes anything?"[break][break]
Conflicting emotions war for dominance in you as you maintain her gaze, unwilling to let her look away from you.[break][break]
Let her dare to lie to you this close. Let her try to hide her own inherent selfishness, her own uncaring and unfeeling nature, her own willingness to lie and manipulate and cheat to get the ending she wants from you.[break][break]
You should expect it when her hand hesitantly reaches for your cheek. It shouldn't surprise you when she draws closer, her lips tentatively brushing against yours.[break][break]
But somehow this slow, apologetic kiss catches you unawares. Even though this is what she always does when she's afraid of you. Even though this part of her lied to you best of all.[break][break]
At this small touch, after being starved for so long of any human contact or kindness, you lose yourself. You smother her in the passion of your anger, kissing her roughly as your body pins her against the wall. Your hands don't know how to hold her gently; there's too much violence in you now, and you can never go back to the person she knew before her betrayal.[break][break]
You can never stop wanting to break everything you touch.[break][break]
But you are alone, too. You are both alone, and it's the thing both of you fear more than anything else.[break][break]
You can't remember the last time someone looked at you, saw you for who you were, and still accepted you.[break][break]
"...Fuck you," you say as you pull away from her kiss, a fist pounding angrily against the rock wall. All of the volcano shakes with your miserable frustration. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you for doing this to me."[break][break]
The unfairness of her tangles up countless feelings inside of you, snarling together into a despairing fury that has no outlet. There's a sense that if you stay near her any longer, you'll fall into some pit you can't come back from, or commit to some impossible choice you can't unmake.[break][break]
Killing her would ruin you. Loving her would ruin you.[break][break]
"You're such a bitch."[break][break]
There's only one choice you can make, and it's the one that left you right where you started. This time, you're the one who leaves her without explanation. This time, you're the one who denies her the closure she seeks.[break][break]
You leave her to fend for herself in this world she doesn't understand.[break][break]
You abandon her, the way she's already abandoned you.

[attr="class","ooc"] MATIAS SILPH

[attr="class","pkmn"]

V. THE COMPROMISED

POV: FERNANDO SILPH

[break]

'It's my win,' he thinks to himself, as Freya systematically dissects and dismantles his team.[break][break]

'It's my win,' he thinks to himself, as his body gives out from under him.[break][break]

'It's my win, so long as she’s alive,' is the last thing he remembers as water washes over him, baptizing him in a defeat he has yet to realize.[break][break]

-OCTOBER, FERNANDO SILPH

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1181081910198403152/1196971037821247629/Dead_Angle_Musicbox_Version_-_Umineko_no_Naku_Koro_ni___Episode_1.mp3?ex=65b99126&is=65a71c26&hm=3aeb757fb70ebd82f0ab4c3be0c1229bcc4c24bde53fbac6d8a669c09dda5771&[/player][break]

^{"Dead Angle" | Umineko no Naku Koro ni OST | ZTS}

[break]

THEN:

EVER GRANDE CITY PRISON, Fiorelli's last meal.

[break]

[break][break]

Established contingencies kept you calm and relaxed as you dined across from Ever Grande City's condemned. You ate in silence, the sound of cutlery scraping against the plate and slicing through meat the only morsel of intelligence you planned to give her.[break][break]

As planned. As of five minutes, five days, and even five weeks ago.[break][break]

There must be a plan for everything.[break][break]

Everything.[break][break]

"Aren't we going to negotiate?" she asked finally, rushing to the point as she was wont to do. A bad habit you don't indulge in; that's how children learn to misbehave.[break][break]

A napkin dabbed at your mouth, leisurely and unbothered. There was no sense in letting her determine the tempo of this game. Not when all the pieces in play belonged to your chessboard, and she had so little material left to bargain with.[break][break]

"What gives you that impression, Fiorelli?" you asked, and no matter how desperately she searched, she'd find no inflection of emotion in your tone. She'd asked you to join her here, but she seemed surprisingly inadequate at reading you still.[break][break]

People always said you were predictable. But people like to think they know you.[break][break]

"You're a businessman," she ultimately decided on. "Everything is up to negotiation, human life included."[break][break]

"Perhaps." You took a sip of the Kalosian wine she'd specifically requested, stifling a grimace. Too sweet for your tastes. Not that this surprised you either. It was another flaw of hers you ignored. "But the matter is out of my hands now. The League has sentenced you. I couldn't supersede them, even if I wanted to."[break][break]

"I thought the power of Silph went further than that. Or is my death that worthwhile to you?"[break][break]

A tiny part of you that enjoyed this, the way doubt filled her eyes if but for a moment. She studied you as if she'd drive herself mad trying to guess the thoughts running through your head.[break][break]

For all her impulsivity, she'd always been simpler to predict than you.[break][break]

"That would depend on the deal being proposed. What do you have to offer me, Fiorelli?"[break][break]

You watched her and waited. You weren't the one running out of time, sentenced to die at dawn; you had the luxury of patience.[break][break]

You drank the last of her father's wine, the faintest hint of regret palpable in the tannins.[break][break]

You let her assess the result of her poor gambles, coming to the conclusion you'd already reached hours ago.[break][break]

That was the difference between a Grandmaster like you and a chess player of Fiorelli's caliber: you didn't rely on short-term gambits.[break][break]

You never sacrificed your position needlessly.[break][break]

---

[break]

NOW:

The last remaining fortress of Silph Co.

[break]

[break][break]
Regret doesn't exist for you.[break][break]

Regret means you did not make the best possible choice in the moment, regardless of the results. You try to avoid that, so no, you don't regret any of it.[break][break]

You aren't like other men. No one has a more indomitable will.[break][break]

You're a Silph.

[break]

The Kecleon trailing MATIAS SILPH finds your unexpected guest half-frozen outside Mauville, almost certainly doomed to die to Rocket Boss jayden cross's unending winter. This works in your favor, however. Her unconscious state allows for investigation.[break][break]

So you seize the opportunity.[break][break]

Seemingly the same bioactivity exists as before, suggesting both of her Avatarships remain intact. She's unarmed, undoubtedly over-relying on her Avatarships as always. Still-healing burns hint at an encounter with PENELOPE LIVY. Bruises along her neck reveal an altercation of some kind with Herrera, complicated by traces of his DNA on her lips.[break][break]

A peculiar reading decides she's younger than she should be.[break][break]

You mull over the possibilities invited by this incomplete story, deciding against anything concrete beyond theory. Jumping to conclusions is hasty. Science is about the testing of hypotheses. You can be patient.[break][break]

Fiorelli eventually awakens to the familiar rhythm of fingers clacking against a keyboard: a sound she'd first heard through a telephone in the late hours of night, indulging in her own forbidden curiosity. Now, it proves the only sound tethering her to this waking reality.[break][break]

You let her react first, keeping her in sight out of the corner of your eye.[break][break]

What you notice is the distrust that colors her features immediately upon seeing you, followed by apparent confusion and a hint of fear. Imperfect as she is, her expressiveness remains eternally useful to you. It gives you insight into her decision-making process.[break][break]

She opens with a pointless question.[break][break]

"What do you think I want with you?" you counter, your attention still wholly focused on the screen in front of you. Porygon-Zs play out simulation after simulation, exploring each branch and bramble of your ever-shifting timeline. "Much time has passed, Fiorelli. Circumstances change."[break][break]

The gold in her hair is too bright. It should be paler, whiter. The misstep in her appearance is so obvious now that it's glaring.[break][break]

"Hm."[break][break]

Her voiced guess is not an entirely unwarranted one: that you must want to kill her. But that she believes this confirms some suspicions. If she's the Fiorelli you think she is, for example, she never had any intention of honoring your agreement. Which is to be expected.[break][break]

You understood that risk, even when first brokering that deal.[break][break]

"You've been recovering from your recent altercations for a week," you remind her when she remains silent, turning away somewhat from your computer. "If I wished you dead, Fiorelli, you would be dead."[break][break]

You could have let her die long before now, as scheduled for her execution.[break][break]

You assume she knows this, until you see the confusion on her face deepen. It's difficult to know if it's because she fears your retaliation, or because she genuinely doesn't understand what's happened between you.[break][break]

So you prod further.[break][break]

"Have you lost control of your patrons, then?"[break][break]

You fold your hands on your lap, regarding her with a single eye as she stares back at you. She's hesitant to answer, which is answer enough. If she possesses any power still, it isn't sufficient enough for her to feel safe with you.[break][break]

Which means her opinion on this situation is irrelevant. She has lost her last two remaining pieces on the chessboard.[break][break]

This only cements the permanence of your change in affairs.[break][break]

"Given the complications inherent to our arrangement," you begin, single eye narrowing, "you should realize our previous understanding is no longer in effect. You didn't uphold your side of the deal."[break][break]

"I would never make a deal with you."

[break]

The viciousness of her senseless denial makes you pause. Her self-righteous response baffles, amuses, and irritates you all at once, though your face reflects none of this in its stoic processing of her own hypocrisy.[break][break]

You should be pleased at how clearly the distinction manifests between her and the woman she once was. You should be relieved that she is nothing more than a once-fatal variable to be examined, poked, and prodded until it is thoroughly understood.[break][break]

But you were called the Vindictive once for a reason.[break][break]

"Did you not choose this?" you remind her calmly, returning to type at your keyboard. Click clack, click clack. "You agreed to enter into my debt, in order to live."[break][break]

You can feel her seething anger emanating behind you, though you choose to ignore it.[break][break]

You ignore it the same way you ignored it when she recklessly and callously discarded kyle lopez from your chessboard. The same way you ignored it when Herrera became even more utterly useless to you than he'd been before her corrosive influence. The same way you ignored it when she confessed to her idiotic plot to overtake declan walsh.[break][break]

All were her own choices. All were her own burden to bear.[break][break]

You let her squirm in the discomfort of her situation. You won't shoulder that accountability for her.[break][break]

You let her wallow in her regrets.[break][break]

"Consider this," you try again, patiently explaining the obvious to her. There are worse fates than being a pawn in the palm of your hand; she could be frozen dead in Mauville, left to rot. "You have nowhere else to run. If you leave, what happens next? Who would be your ally? What do you have left to bargain with to earn their trust?"[break][break]

Fiorelli has nothing left that can tempt you.[break][break]

Or so you think, at least, until she states the unexpected aloud:[break][break]

"I can change the past."

[break]

Cait Alfric was once your insurance policy. Celebi would provide you as many endings as it took to ensure your life's work was achieved -- that the promise you'd made to a woman long dead would be enacted, no matter the cost.[break][break]

When Alfric disappeared, and her patron vanished with her, you lost yourself. The promise that had grounded you had suddenly slipped away from you, becoming something it was never meant to be. The Hoenn around you now is a testament to what happens when faith wavers.[break][break]

But you do not ever waver, for you are a Silph. You are a Silph, and you have never wavered.[break][break]

So you do not waver when she seeks to broker a different deal with you now.[break][break]

Fiorelli is a lesser chess player than you. Her terms -- that she play white -- are amenable enough. It is not enough of an advantage to bridge her skill gap.[break][break]

If she wins, you allow her to leave unhindered.[break][break]

If you win, she takes you back to the past with her. These are the stakes you agree upon.[break][break]

"An interesting tale, Fiorelli, should it prove true," you state, watching her open with a white pawn marching across the board. "I will need to kill the Silph of your world. The greatest counter to a Fernando Silph, is the native Fernando Silph of that universe."[break][break]

Replacing him would be ideal. You can ensure that what happens here does not happen there; you can cut off this rotted and decaying branch from the canonical timeline, erasing it as an anomaly. It would be equivalent to an unpleasant R.K.S. Simulation, blinking out harmlessly to be forgotten.[break][break]

"Disposing of him will not be easy. He would rather sacrifice the surest win if it guarantees he wouldn't lose."[break][break]

Has her Fernando already been compromised? You strongly believe so. Her timeline appears to align suspiciously closely with your own.[break][break]

There is the obvious possibility she is lying. It would not be unlike her to bluff poorly; then again, that's precisely why you're inclined to believe her now.[break][break]

She's too confident and self-assured in this matter. She fully believes herself, whether or not it's true.[break][break]

"What effect did your Tapu Fini have upon Silph?" you probe, and her answer comes out incomplete. Either she's brazen enough to pretend nothing happened between you, or her tale hovers on the precipice of its inevitable ruin. You opt to give a half-explanation, in case. "Good. When you are reunited with your patron, we can neutralize him."[break][break]

You watch the dance of black-and-white pieces dart across the board. The early game is predictable in its exchanges. The rote pattern plays out until the midgame, where unexpected tactics emerge.[break][break]

"Do you know your greatest misplay in this timeline?" you bait her, putting her into check.[break][break]

She bristles at that unexpected insult, saying nothing as she concentrates upon evading your advance across the board. You know she's listening regardless. This psychology is as much a part of the game as the material exchanged between you.[break][break]

"Lopez. Killing him created an imbalance others failed to fill in the League." The late Champion had the right balance of apathy and heroism. He inspired without being weighed down by responsibility. "Without Lopez, you lack appropriate checks and balances of power. The League prioritizes your death over their victory. Rockets prioritize their thirst for power over their survival. Your own greed would have killed you, if not for me."[break][break]

She says nothing to this, but your words weigh on her. You can tell by the way her shoulders lower in defeat. This, you know, is the more important victory.[break][break]

You must ensure that no matter what happens in the Origin Point, Kyle lives. He is your contingency plan. He will protect Hoenn even if you cannot.[break][break]

You suspect, though you cannot confirm, that her universe and yours are one and the same. The difference is merely in your place on the timeline. If the past changes, there is every possibility that this future thread unravels, spinning off as if it no longer existed at all.[break][break]

Which means you might be erased also, and everyone in this world erased with you.[break][break]

This leaves two options. Either you must replace her Silph in her world, or accept the unknown fate of an averted timeline. How ironic, that you saved her life only for her to abandon this world all over again.[break][break]

It's as if she can hear your thoughts:[break][break]

"Why did you spare me, then? After what I did."

[break]

"..."[break][break]

The muscle in your jaw tightens. You don't acknowledge her question, not because you cannot answer it, but because it feels beneath you to do so. You focus on the pieces and enact your aggressive maneuvers, distracting her with a chaotic frenzy of attacks that don't seem sensible to even the most seasoned of chess players.[break][break]

You deflect expertly.[break][break]

But she repeats herself, and still you don't admit the answer. Not when the risk of doing so is too high. Not when the burden of knowledge could compromise the future in such a catastrophic way. You cannot enable her to succumb to her arrogance again.[break][break]

You are so consumed by your intensity of focus that you do not notice her forcibly grab your hand, an ochre sheen in her once-emerald eyes.[break][break]

The effect of the GRUDGE is instantaneous.[break][break]

Resentment flows out of you like water bursting from a long-suppressed dam, bitter at its delayed release as your single eye meets her own. You grit your teeth, attempting to will against the thoughts that begin to clamor in your mind one after another. They fight for your notice like clawing hands, grasping for whatever shred of sanity or willpower they can take from you.[break][break]

You refuse. You refute them all. You refuse to believe that even for a moment--[break][break]

That there was a single moment that you might--[break][break]

NO. YOU DO NOT REGRET.

[break]

Too many battles compete for your attention. You can only win one, and you choose the one that your pride selfishly demands you win. You stubbornly rebuke the recurring impulse to succumb to self-loathing, and as you do so you lose sight of the actual game between you. It becomes smaller and more insignificant the longer it goes on.[break][break]

It ceases to matter.[break][break]

"Ngh."[break][break]

You decide her narrow victory means nothing to you. The very sight of her incurs such disdain in this moment you're tempted to cast her out yourself.[break][break]

She's delusional. She's liable to die the instant she leaves your sight.[break][break]

"Congratulations. You're free to run."[break][break]

It doesn't matter if her version of events is true. This is your Hoenn. This is your universe, your timeline, your domain.[break][break]

You are a Silph. You do not have the luxury to run from your destiny. You reject the cowardice of the woman you're unshackling yourself from. [break][break]

It is the duty of the captain to go down with the ship. If this part of the timeline blinks out and ceases to exist, you will defend it until its final moments.[break][break]

You. Are. A. Silph.[break][break]

The abandoned chessboard clatters to the ground, its useless pieces scattered to be forgotten.

[attr="class","ooc"] FERNANDO SILPH

[attr="class","pkmn"]

VI. THE RUINED

POV: ELISABETH FIORELLI

[break]

"In how many universes do we die in this hell of our own making?"[break][break]

"In how many universes do we break ourselves down so others can stand taller on our backs?"[break][break]

"In how many universes does the earth curse us with its indifference?"[break][break]

-WE WHO CURSE THE EARTH, Elisabeth Fiorelli

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1181081910198403152/1200887362020966520/The_Shifting_Mound_Movement_III.mp3?ex=65c7d082&is=65b55b82&hm=ec4f9c1aa8ae497f4832e98e3feb34c104de2375d8dbc74987028d3ef6d42b4d&[/player][break]

^{"The Shifting Mound (Movement III)" | Slay the Princess OST | Brandon Boone, Amelia Jones}

[break]

YOU:

THE RUINER THAT WE BOTH WERE.

[break]

[break][break]

Ah. It's you.[break][break]

Of course it'd be you. You're the only one who'd think to find me in Floaroma Town.[break][break]

Tell me, what do you think of the gardens? The flowers are flourishing nicely, aren't they? I'd given up on thinking they would, but I managed to surprise myself.[break][break]

You seem surprised by me, too. Or by 'us.' By what we are, or what you perceive us to be.[break][break]

But does a tree that blooms in spring become something new when winter strips it bare? No, you know better. There are always cycles to things. To seasons, to people.[break][break]

You have found me beginning again in a new spring. But you seem lost, as if you don't know where it is you begin or end.[break][break]

I'm curious. What did you think of the person they believed us to be?[break][break]

Do we look like the woman they told you to expect?[break][break]

Are we the ruin of Hoenn, and the murderer of its greatest hope? Are we the greedy usurper that dared to bite the hand that fed us? Are we the wicked creature that toyed with men's hearts like they were playthings, laughing as we ripped them apart for sport?[break][break]

Or are we merely fortune's fool, forever dangling on the precipice of disaster?[break][break]

Who are we, do you think? Who are you?[break][break]

I don't think you know yet. I don't think you know what it is that you want from me, any more than I know what I want from you. It's nice to have company, though. I have been by myself for quite some time.[break][break]

Though I suppose you still count as talking to myself. How funny.[break][break]

It isn't as nice as the cottage we used to have, but I've made do. The countryside here is remote enough that no one thinks to bother me. I can't remember the last time I've had to take a human life. I can't remember the last time I've even had a conversation with another human being.[break][break]

Does the thought alarm you, the idea of being so wholly and completely alone? I find peace in it. I have become well-acquainted with my own loneliness.[break][break]

You seem to still fear yours, though. How curious. I wonder what tether it is that still keeps you bound to humanity. I wonder if yours will eventually wither, as all mine did.[break][break]

There is a peace to be had in dying to the world. You no longer have to disappoint anyone.[break][break]

Have you disappointed anyone in your Hoenn yet? Anyone who matters, I mean. If not, I wonder if you will.[break][break]

I don't know how closely you resemble me. I don't know if we are twin mirrors, you and I, or merely two ripples that extend from the same drop of rainwater, carried across the world to separate ocean shores.[break][break]

But I recognize you more than the others I've seen. The ones that Celebi showed me back then didn't bear the same grief.[break][break]

They were painfully unlike me without it. I didn't recognize those women, and so I rejected my kinship to them.[break][break]

Yet I can sense the old resentment lingering on you still, like a shadow that follows you wherever you go. It's the same one that haunts me.[break][break]

It's why even here, in a place where no one knows my name, Wo-chien remains beside me. Oh, Tapu Fini has long fled my company, for she wanted me to play a part I've since tired of playing. You're afraid of our Ruinous Beast, I can sense that too, but only because you still don't understand why it chose you.[break][break]

You will.[break][break]

The bond between us lives in an ache inside of you, within the wound that you yearn to close most of all. You think love might forgive it, and provide the sutures to heal. You think power might justify it, and provide scars thick enough that nothing else can ever hurt you. You think running will distract you from all your quiet pain, until you can lie to yourself and pretend it no longer exists.[break][break]

I have tried all this, but I promise that none of it will save you.[break][break]

You are still filled with so much possibility. You are blind to it, I know, but I see it in you. There were doors that I didn't know I could have ever opened, not until I heard them lock shut behind me.[break][break]

Do you want to know me, the way that I want to know you?[break][break]

Or are you set on what you came here to do? Are you going to kill me, the way you believed I was going to kill you?[break][break]

I will wait as you decide. I have nothing left but time.[break][break]

---

[break]

ME:

THE RUINER THAT WE BECOME.

[break]

[break][break]

Sometimes I miss you.[break][break]

I still think of you fondly, like the little sister I never had, even though I should know better than to think such things about my former self. I understand that, like me, you are meant to ruin everything you touch and all that loves you.[break][break]

That's why, when this timeline ends after you make whatever choices you choose, I will have no regrets either.[break][break]

I don't have the right to grieve this world, I think. I've destroyed too much of it with my own two hands. I've had to accept what I am, the way you have yet to accept what you are.[break][break]

Sometimes, as I water my plants and weed my gardens, I think I should have warned you more about what's going to happen to you.[break][break]

I should have explained what it is you have yet to understand about yourself. About us.[break][break]

We are two rivers that have long run dry; people come to us to slake a need we cannot provide for them. We are left with barren soil, only good for sharp things to grow and take hold.[break][break]

Sometimes people cruelly tempt us with the dream of being more than we are, and we delude ourselves into believing them. They invite us into the garden of their lives, thinking we might flourish among the joy and the fulfillment they know so well and so intimately.[break][break]

But there are things so greedy that they can only survive by killing everything around them. A kudzu flower, beautiful as it is, remains invasive.[break][break]

The more others invite you into their lives, the more fiercely they will seek to be rid of you.[break][break]

You will not be the person they hoped you would be. They will rewrite you into someone they can understand, whether it's someone they can love or someone they can hate. But they will never accept who you truly are.[break][break]

We are, in essence, anathema to all that we touch. I have since chosen to touch nothing that matters.[break][break]

I have let go of the desire for power. I have let go of the desire for love and companionship. I have let go of the desire to be free from my pain.[break][break]

Here is the secret: I have accepted that my pain will forever be a part of me. My resentment is quieter knowing this, for it does not demand my recognition. Even Wo-chien's hunger is subdued, knowing it will forever sustain itself on what I allow it to feed upon.[break][break]

It is what it is, as I am what I am. There is no judgment to be had in mere existence.[break][break]

I wonder if you will pity Wo-chien, as I do. I wonder if you will ever realize how infantile it is, how it acts like one of Arceus's children that is forever starved of its mother's attention. Like us, Wo-chien only knows how to ruin the things it desires most. Like us, Wo-chien cannot escape the famine that it was born to inherit.[break][break]

This is our bond: we are but two self-destructive forces cursed with our own unbelonging.[break][break]

You will never love your patron, I think, and it will never love you. The Ruinous Beast doesn't understand that emotion. But perhaps you will accept its empty childlike heart for what it is, the way I hope you will one day accept yourself for what you are.[break][break]

Another sunset passes, and soon another dawn rises; I don't know how many are left until this world ends. I had thought it would be me that caused it to collapse, but it will be you. How could you not, after witnessing everything this world becomes? You have observed so many things that you were never meant to see.[break][break]

Of course you'd change, and through changing, you'd kill me simply by not becoming me.[break][break]

You will become another me -- a better me, or so I dare to hope.[break][break]

Would you believe me if I told you that wish, before you left? I don't think you would have. It's been so long since either of us knew how to hope for anything.[break][break]

But I do. I hope your world will be kinder than mine. I hope you will be better than me.[break][break]

I hope that you will remember me, fondly, the way no one in my own world ever would. You won't, though. I wouldn't have, not when I was you.[break][break]

I know you cannot love yourself, just as I cannot love myself.[break][break]

So instead I will love you from afar, the way you have always secretly desired to be unconditionally loved, and hope that it is enough to matter.[break][break]

When my world is nothing but a figment that Dialga has long forgotten ever imagining, even then, I will always love you.

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

[attr="class","pkmn"]

EPILOGUE:

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[break][break]

EVEN DIALGA CANNOT FIND A LOST OPPORTUNITY

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[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1181081910198403152/1201388256965709854/Dearly_Beloved.mp3?ex=65c9a301&is=65b72e01&hm=6a112fb3fbfd94598982a2ed5df8486d24963e8990a28a92e2afac3a1b761385&[/player][break]

^{"Dearly Beloved" | Kingdom Hearts OST | Yoko Shimomura | TPR (Piano Cover)}

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[break]SUMMARY OF DIVERGENCES:

[break]
Below is a general documentation of the temporal divergences that occur in the timeline witnessed by Elisabeth in 'Father Winter: Branch and Bauble,' separated by section.[break][break]

SPOILER: Click to show

I. PROLOGUE[break][break]
▸ Ruination has occurred in this world, and all four Ruinous Avatars contributed.[break][break]
▸ During Ruination, Kyle Lopez dies, and Elisabeth is blamed as the primary culprit.[break][break]
▸ Navy becomes the reluctant Champion of Hoenn after Kyle's death, but still cannot bring himself to kill an unarmed enemy.[break][break]
▸ Ting Lu's anonymous Avatar, 'the Craven,' is a former Rocket who betrayed Elisabeth to the League in exchange for escape and anonymity.[break][break]
▸ The successful plan to capture Elisabeth is orchestrated primarily by Freya, making use of connections from the Rocket rehabilitation program overseen by Ollie and military strength from the League.[break][break]
▸ Elisabeth is sentenced to be executed by the League due to her threat as a dual Avatar and her criminal history.[break][break]
▸ Official AQUA documents determine that Elisabeth used Tapu Fini on Matias, Fernando, and others to achieve her ends, whether or not that is strictly true.[break][break]
▸ When the position of Rocket Boss is open for taking, it is Jayden who succeeds Walsh due to his loyalty, his increased aggression after Ruination, and his dictator-like ability to utilize Elisabeth's death as a rallying to war.[break][break]
▸ Under Jayden's direction, Rocket incites riots and overthrows the League-proper by burning down Ever Grande City, resulting in fractured factions of resistance that fight against the Rocket revolution.[break][break]
▸ Zev ultimately loses his humanity to Necrozma, becoming a pure vessel of violence that helps Rocket succeed in their brutal terrorism of the region.

II. THE COVETED[break][break]
▸ HNN and other similar establishments have fallen apart due to the ongoing war, resulting in a lack of widespread information.[break][break]
▸ Penelope denies her own agency in the Ruination and her part in Kyle's death, but is never trusted by the League like she once was.[break][break]
▸ When the League falls apart, Penelope forms her own faction with Ollie, Caleb, Paxton, Gunner, and others who are loyal to her.[break][break]
▸ Penelope's coterie of followers are fanatics following a cult leader more than a group banding around a common ideal. This is implied to be Chi-yu's influence.[break][break]
▸ Penelope's sanity has waned over the years, and Chi-yu's influence has overwhelmed her completely.

III. THE RAVENING[break][break]
▸ Barnaby has given up his civilian identity given the ongoing war, living purely as his Rocket persona.[break][break]
▸ In this dystopian world, Barnaby continues to use his Cutiefly network as a means of gathering intelligence.[break][break]
▸ Barnaby becomes the Avatar of the Galarian Moltres in this timeline. His title is 'The Ravening.'[break][break]
▸ Barnaby's powers involve the ability to become an avian shadow that teleports between locations and phases through objects, as well as a voice that can command temporary blind obedience from its target.[break][break]
▸ Elisabeth tries to enlist Barnaby to help her become Walsh's replacement, but he refuses, correctly pointing out she doesn't have the backing to do so and that the Craven isn't to be trusted.[break][break]
▸ Elisabeth never once uses Tapu Fini's mist on Barnaby in this timeline, the implication being she loved him too much to ever dream of taking his agency from him.[break][break]
▸ Barnaby's forcible use of his Avatarship's manipulative powers on Elisabeth is what fractures their relationship, destroying the trust between them.

IV. THE VOLATILE[break][break]
▸ Elisabeth chooses to betray Declan, rather than Matias, in this timeline.[break][break]
▸ The Red Shard that Elisabeth gives Matias in this timeline is real, as she wants to convince Matias to help her seize the position of Rocket Boss.[break][break]
▸ Kyle's death results in several people receiving the blessings of the Sacred Beasts, including Josh Devlin, but not Matias.[break][break]
▸ Kyle's death causes Matias to spiral out, senselessly taking out his rage on Rockets and the League alike.[break][break]
▸ Due to falsely believing that Matias was compromised by Tapu Fini's mist, the League wholly excluded him from their plans to capture and execute Elisabeth.[break][break]
▸ This narrative is implied to be Fernando's handiwork, having convinced the council that Tapu Fini had compromised both him and Matias, but that it had overwhelmed Matias more.[break][break]
▸ It is also implied that Fernando spread misinformation regarding Tapu Fini's abilities to the League, creating misunderstandings about Elisabeth's true abilities.[break][break]
▸ Matias never received closure for Elisabeth's actions, as she was 'executed' before he could confront her for Kyle's death.

V. THE COMPROMISED[break][break]
▸ Fernando makes a secret deal with Elisabeth to escape her execution.[break][break]
▸ Elisabeth breaks the terms of their agreement, vanishing without telling him her whereabouts.[break][break]
▸ It is implied Elisabeth secretly worked to remove Declan from power and succeeded, confiding in Fernando for his advice in the matter.[break][break]
▸ Fernando continues to work against Rocket with Silph Co., despite the fact the League has fallen apart, and uses his Kecleon as a spy network.[break][break]
▸ Areas of the region, such as Mauville, have been plagued by an eternal winter due to Rocket Boss Jayden's influence.[break][break]
▸ It is implied that distance away from Elisabeth and Tapu Fini lessens her influence over Fernando.[break][break]
▸ It is implied that if Elisabeth didn't have Tapu Fini, Fernando's actions would have unfolded very differently in this timeline.[break][break]
▸ Fernando believes that if Kyle were still alive, that would have been enough of a contingency to negate much of Elisabeth's negative influence in this timeline.[break][break]

VI. THE RUINED[break][break]
▸ Elisabeth fakes her death and flees Hoenn to Sinnoh, where she hides on the outskirts of Floaroma Town in a small cottage with a garden.[break][break]
▸ Elisabeth forms an understanding with Wo-chien, and loses her Avatarship with Tapu Fini due to refusing her second deity's demands.[break][break]
▸ Elisabeth makes silent peace with the destruction she has caused, giving up her ambitions and isolating herself from the world to prevent herself from worsening it further.[break][break]
▸ The Elisabeth of the future allows the Elisabeth of the present to stay with her as long as she likes, until eventually Father Winter comes for her and whisks her away. Until then, they simply have long conversations with one another.[break][break]
▸ This timeline is implied to be the natural continuation of future events, presuming that Elisabeth never witnesses the future that Father Winter shows her.[break][break]
▸ The fact Elisabeth witnesses this future universe, however, means this world will cease to exist the moment she returns to her present timeline, if only by virtue of having observed things she was never meant to.[break][break]

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SUMMARY OF BUTTERFLY EFFECTS:

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Below is rough documentation of significant threads that contextually informed the scenes in this timeline, some providing 'Easter Eggs' for each section.[break][break]

SPOILER: Click to show

I. PROLOGUE[break][break]
▸ THE WOMAN WHO WASHED ASHORE ft. Michael Navidson.[break]
▸ EVENT HORIZON ft. Zev Harcourt.[break]
▸ BEHIND THE MASK ft. Zev Harcourt.[break]
▸ THE LIGHT THAT BURNS THE SKY (FW2) ft. Zev Harcourt.

II. THE COVETED[break][break]
▸ SUGARCANE RUM ft. PENELOPE LIVY.[break]
▸ PARADISE LOST ft. PENELOPE LIVY & MATIAS SILPH.[break]
▸ I HOPE YOU FIND SOME PEACE OF MIND ft. PENELOPE LIVY & paxton concordas.[break]
▸ ROT ft. PENELOPE LIVY.[break]
▸ THE GOLDEN ERA ft. PENELOPE LIVY, dahlia goode, FERNANDO SILPH, & freya morningstar.

III. THE RAVENING[break][break]
▸ EDEN'S EMBRACE ft. BARNABY FINCH.[break]
▸ WE WHO CURSE THE EARTH ft. BARNABY FINCH.[break]
▸ LE LETHE ft. BARNABY FINCH.[break]
▸ ABNEGATION ft. BARNABY FINCH.[break]
▸ FORGET-ME-NOT ft. BARNABY FINCH.

IV. THE VOLATILE[break][break]
▸ BABYLON ft. MATIAS SILPH.[break]
▸ TRUST ft. MATIAS SILPH.[break]
▸ THE SPIDER AND THE FLY ft. declan walsh.[break]
▸ I LIVED ft. MATIAS SILPH.[break]
▸ TILL FOREVER FALLS APART ft. MATIAS SILPH & Eva Morales.[break]
▸ SHIELD AND SPEAR ft. MATIAS SILPH.[break]
▸ FAULTLINE ft. MATIAS SILPH & FERNANDO SILPH.

V. THE COMPROMISED[break][break]
▸ FATHER WINTER'S GAMBLE (WW) ft. FERNANDO SILPH.[break]
▸ OBLIQUITY ft. FERNANDO SILPH.[break]
▸ FERNANDO SILPH SECRET ROUTE: SECOND DATE ft. FERNANDO SILPH.[break]
▸ FERNANDO SILPH FINAL ROUTE: THIRD DATE ft. FERNANDO SILPH.[break]
▸ PLENILUNE ft. FERNANDO SILPH.[break]
▸ OCTOBER ft. FERNANDO SILPH & freya morningstar.[break]
▸ FAULTLINE ft. MATIAS SILPH & FERNANDO SILPH.[break]
▸ FUGACIOUS ft. FERNANDO SILPH.

VI. THE RUINED[break][break]
▸ WE WHO CURSE THE EARTH ft. BARNABY FINCH.[break]
▸ LE LETHE ft. BARNABY FINCH.[break]
▸ BABYLON ft. MATIAS SILPH.[break]
▸ OCTOBER ft. FERNANDO SILPH & freya morningstar.[break]
▸ DROWN OUT MY DREAMS (DDD) ft. Elisabeth Fiorelli.

[attr="class","ooc"] 🌱 Thanks for reading! 🌱

[attr="class","pkmn"]