[attr="class","omgentop"]LANTERNE OF LIGHT

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SPECIAL EVENT THREAD

ROUTE 126

[player]https://file.garden/ZXZrnWMYuz15frfJ/HOENN%20MUSIC/LEGENDARY%20BIRD%20BATTLE.mp3[/player][break]

Battle! Galarian Legendary Birds - Pokémon Sword & Shield

SET IMMEDIATELY AFTER[break]"TALES BENEATH THE DYNA TREE"

THE GALARIAN MOLTRES LOOKS LIKE IT IS SMILING. Perhaps it is pleased by BARNABY FINCH's relentless pursuit. Pleased that a man like him was willing to give chase despite the dangers hiding beneath its darksome plume. Surrounded by dusk, the Admin endures the oppressive aura that emanates from the malevolent creature.[break][break]

Nearby, wild Pokemon flee by sea and air. The lights of CHINCHOU fade by distance—and fatigue.[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH may wonder if this GALARIAN MOLTRES bears any connection to Hoenn's MOLTRES, its past ability to ULTRA BURST, or the GALAR REGION far away. However, this creature appears to be separate. Unique. The Malevolent Pokemon has manifested in part, due to BARNABY FINCH's own desires—and the chain reaction of creation instigated by THE VIOLET BOOK. Dynergy, power spots, The Dyna Tree, and Team Rocket's Calyrex...[break][break]

It spreads its sinister aura once more and takes BARNABY FINCH with it into Tartarus.

GUIDELINES

LIST OF GUIDELINES

BELOW are a list of guidelines. The narrative's concept has been established between Dove and shiv prior to this thread's creation.[break][break]

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• 🔥 barnaby will enter an underworld-like realm to be tested by the galarian moltres.
• 🔥 should barnaby survive the trials and tribulations and avoid becoming a shadow of himself, he will be able to capture the galarian moltres and be bestowed its power.
• 🔥 the galarian moltres is not a benevolent creature, but will ally itself with those it deems worthy or conducive to its own desires.
• 🔥 in this realm, unlucky spirits galarian moltres has consumed can be found, referenced, and incorporated.

RULES

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING GUIDELINES. A more comprehensive list of rules will be published in each event thread. These rules are also subject to change.[break][break][break]

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• After completing your thread, please let shiv know.
• Feel free to ask shiv any questions.

BARNABY FINCH

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[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1205934982258753546/1205936193259184149/howls_moving_castle_theme_dark_version.mp3?ex=66118d99&is=65ff1899&hm=ee75664927cabbb8f9bcb7c63392b788720cef77dafc8de8631af2a1ac76d4ff&[/player]




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Along with MOLTRES' sinister aura, shadows beneath the giant bird extended past the limits of its body and toward the object of its curiosity. Magenta flames quickly blotted out Barnaby's vision, searing it red, but it was an abysmal darkness that eventually took him in.[break][break]

Everything went black. The sounds of wind and surf faded into muted nothingness.[break][break]

When he regained his composure moments later, the ROCKET admin soon realized that he'd been dragged into some liminal space by MOLTRES' dark powers.[break][break]

"What is this place...?" Barnaby muttered under his breath, taking in his hellish surroundings. [break][break]

[break]

It was a dilapidated waste. There was no life here, only remnants of what was. Strangely, the crumbling ruins included what looked like an elevated railway, not dissimilar to what one might find in MOTOSTOKE, GALAR. A fuchsia miasma lingered on every surface, curling around every stone column or lifeless snag. It was a suffocating and draining — yet unavoidable — thing to breath in. [break][break]

Even more concerning was the way the darkness crept in from the edges of Barnaby's peripheral vision, only to withdraw with the turn of his head.[break][break]

The shadows, too, moved in unnerving, unnatural ways. Where everything else appeared decayed and stagnant, these were the only things to approximate life.[break][break]

Dread seeped into BARNABY FINCH's bones. It clutched his heart in a vice grip, filled his chest to bursting. It was all he could do to ground himself and focus on the logical, here in this illogical plane.[break][break]

[break]



Above, MOLTRES loomed upon its perch — now distorted into a barren husk of a DYNA TREE — at the center of its umbral realm. With a curious craning of its massive head, the shadows in front of Barnaby suddenly began to shift and bubble over. Inky wisps intertwined together until... a vestige of a person emerged from the gloom.[break][break]

A person BARNABY FINCH knew well. [break][break]

Could MOLTRES probe his consciousness here, in this shadowed place? How else could it have known to conjure someone so embroiled in Barnaby's psyche?[break][break]

Elisabeth Fiorelli.

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MOLTRES watched from above in a theater of its own making, perched in the gods to take in the show that unfolded below.[break][break]

Its predatory gaze was locked on BARNABY FINCH, the hunger in its eyes unmistakable. It was a ravenous creature, never sated, always on the hunt for more.[break][break]

Was that why it'd been roaming around Hoenn for months on end? Had it found what it was looking for?[break][break]

Or was it still seeking it here — in him?[break][break]

Barnaby wondered at MOLTRES' intentions for conjuring this shadow of Elisabeth Fiorelli. The shade attacked with neither fists nor force, but with scathing words, meant to test his resolve in this hellish plane. [break][break]

When a cold finger slid across his cheek, Barnaby's body stiffened and his own eyes leveled on the two sparks of magenta flames that composed this Elisa's face.[break][break]

[break]

"A tool to be used." [break][break]

There was no hesitance in his response. He had a feeling that lying here would serve no purpose, anyway.[break][break]

"As everyone is." She grabbed his chin, muttered thinly-veiled threats in that sultry voice he knew so well, yet BARNABY FINCH yanked himself out of her grip before continuing his reply.[break][break]

"To further my ambitions. To consolidate power. To solidify my control." [break][break]

From on high, a low, approving hiss rang out through the darkness.[break][break]

Suddenly, the miasma to Barnaby's right twisted and began forming into discernable shapes. A RING, a DAGGER, a COLLAR. Melded by shadow and offered to him by MOLTRES itself. [break][break]

Props to continue the show. He perused them briefly, weighing Elisabeth Fiorelli's words in his mind, before plucking the RING from where it floated in the gloom.[break][break]

"Elisabeth will not be allowed to fall into despair, let alone take me with her. She's yoked by the trust she has in me. She and the gods who claim her are bound to me."[break][break]

Reaching out to touch the approximation of flesh that was the shade's hand, Barnaby slid the shadowed band onto her left ring finger.[break][break]

"Her love is her greatest vulnerability. With it, I can do with her whatever I please."

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Though she was but a mere imitation of the real thing, BARNABY FINCH relished the way Elisabeth Fiorelli burned before him.[break][break]

Firelight danced in his eyes, their cobalt blue depths overtaken by the blazing of magenta flames. Her screams of defeat and betrayal echoed through the dark expanse of MOLTRES' realm, sounding much like a dulcet aria to his ears. It was a beautiful thing.[break][break]

To see her succumb to his selfish desires.[break][break]

It had been almost cathartic, to speak his truth aloud. Too often Barnaby's schemes were relegated to the shadows, where he and he alone could puppeteer his plans into being. [break][break]

But here, MOLTRES made a gluttonous audience. It deigned to see the depths of this mortal's depravity.[break][break]

Behind BARNABY FINCH, another shadow emerged from the dark recesses of this liminal space.

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Of all the men MOLTRES could have summoned from his subconscious, BARNABY FINCH was unsurprised to see Caleb Harcourt make an appearance here, juxtaposed so fittingly against Elisabeth Fiorelli. The ranger tested his resolve in the outside world on a near daily basis — so why not in this shadowed realm as well?[break][break]

Umbral hands clutched at the most sensitive parts of his body, possessive, seductive. Barnaby could feel his energy being siphoned from within him wherever shadow touched flesh; weariness and fatigue threatened to buckle his knees, to have him succumb to this dark shade of Caleb Harcourt.[break][break]

His words were cloyingly persuasive, evocative of a bygone time. They wished to touch upon a feeling long forgotten — long suppressed. But from somewhere deep in the recesses of BARNABY FINCH's memory, pieces of a ruined GALAR began materializing to the forefront of his mind.[break][break]

He'd festered there in that poisoned place for twenty years. Let the filth drag him down to the basest level. And, as this Caleb so rightly, insufferably claimed, allowed a noxious emotion to sneak its way into his heart. [break][break]

Remembering it now was a revolting reminiscence. [break][break]

After all, love made one vulnerable.[break][break]

Love was a liability. A crutch for the weak.[break][break]

But most of all, love was a means to an end.[break][break]

It was not something Universe 820's BARNABY FINCH would ever allow someone to hold over him.[break][break]

"Whatever I felt for that man should have died in Galar. Dredging up a nightmare serves no purpose now."[break][break]

His voice was low and venomous, and as he spoke the shadows flamed around them, as if reacting to his disgust and animosity. In fact, every defiant word that left Barnaby's lips returned a modicum of strength to his body, until he was eventually able to break free of the shade's grasp.[break][break]

"He can languish with that love for all eternity. He means nothing to me."[break][break]

And here, in MOLTRES' theater, no truer words had been spoken.[break][break]

"His feelings? I'd rather burn them away. Cut them out of me and be done with it."[break][break]

The shadow of Caleb Harcourt balked at the assertion. Magenta flames flickered inside of its open mouth, as if it was preparing some sort of rebuttal, but the words died in its throat.[break][break]

At the crescendo of their argument, MOLTRES' spectral DAGGER found itself plunged in the space where the shade's heart would have been. It was a familiar sight, as if prophesized by FATHER WINTER's recent visit.[break][break]

"...I refuse to be controlled by something as insignificant as love."

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The imitation of Caleb Harcourt sunk into the gloom, killed and discarded for a love that could never truly be reciprocated.[break][break]

Once it's body had succumbed to the darkness, all that was left of the creature was the stark redness of it's blood splattered on BARNABY FINCH's hand. But it did not simply stain his flesh; instead, every drop suddenly morphed into inky tendrils of shadow that burrowed and phased into him.[break][break]



It felt as if his arm had ignited. Groaning in pain, Barnaby clutched his wrist in the other hand and grit his teeth against the escalating agony. He could almost feel the tendrils moving beneath the skin, wriggling higher and higher until...[break][break]

They reached his chest. All at once, the pain subsided.[break][break]

From above, a crooning call rang out, snapping his attention back up to MOLTRES.[break][break]

When their eyes met, swathes of magenta flames bloomed all around BARNABY FINCH, ringing him in a hellish light.[break][break]

From the fire came the next shade to challenge him.

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Out from the fire and brimstone, a silhouette of ravishing smoke approaches.
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She is different than the ghosts before her. No smoke tethers her bones, no shadows sew her flesh. She is wildfire; a torrent of flames basking in the pride that comes with self-assured certainty. She is a manifestation of forgone memories, of precarious futures, all with amber eyes burning with silent mockery.
[break][break]

Like a grandfather clock, a ribbon of scarlet swings with every step toward him, obnoxiously ticking down the time spent enclosing their spirits.
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"You speak so highly of yourself," the flame hisses, a smile creeping along her face, "as though you are worth the praise."
[break][break]

Without warning, the silhouette melts into a puddle of smoldering smoke and races through his legs, taking shape just behind his right shoulder, vanishing and reappearing in a single breath.
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Low and menacing, she whispers into the shell of his ear, "Even with the same beginnings, you continue to dance like jester for a world who couldn't care less about you, all while she rises to the top, claiming more power than you could ever imagine."
[break][break]

Again, the flame vanishes, kicking to the left side of his shoulder blade, reappearing with one arm hanging over him in languid ridicule. She spreads open her fingers, palm facing the skies, and materializes a small modal of a woman born from ruinous contempt and pathetic groveling. A singular ring of gold entraps the woman's neck.
[break][break]

"For what? An organization that overlooks you? Underboss, two gods - how many times will you go unnoticed, playing in the shadows, while even your own tools rise to their potential."
[break][break]

The ring snaps, falling off from the woman's neck, and she stares out at him, wielding the same disparaging look the flame carries. No love carves her eyes, nor weakness to be exploited - there is only hollow disappointment. Potent as any poison.
[break][break]

This image hovers for a second longer before dissipating into a pile of ash, moving with the silhouette that now slides around his left side, with firelight echoing off from her path.
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Velvet flames stroke his chest as her arm extends outward, cradling his cheek gingerly.
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"You were discovered before," she coos at him, "and you'll be discovered again. So I ask you," her fingers crawl downward, fire biting at his skin as it makes its descent, finding purchase around his neck. Immediate pressure envelopes his neck, guttering with the growing reality raging all-around. One without promise of victory, or rebirth. A reality written with a pre-established end.
[break][break]

"What will you do then?"

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The fires that composed this manifestation of PENELOPE LIVY made for a fitting puppet, personified as she was into the flames that her sentient counterpart had chosen to drown herself within. She talked of lost power, of tools growing beyond their scope, of all the ways he could fall in the face of those that considered themselves better.[break][break]

She represented everything BARNABY FINCH abhorred.[break][break]

Outside this shadowed place, the councilwoman was a driving force within the LEAGUE that needed to be subdued if ROCKET was to claim Hoenn as its own, as they'd done to Kanto. Her influence — and by extension the LEAGUE's — had grown over the years, in no small part due to CHI-YU's attachment to her.[break][break]

How to tip the scales, then, in ROCKET's favor - in his favor?[break][break]

Though a fiery hand clutched his neck, Barnaby reached for the COLLAR suspended beside him: the last of the three shadowed tools provided by MOLTRES.[break][break]

Her grip tightened as he did so, fingers curling maliciously around his throat, threatening a bleak demise here in this purgatorial plane. [break][break]

Persistent even as his chest burned and begged for reprieve, Barnaby unlatched the COLLAR — but just as he was about to bind the shade and all she represented to his will, a moment of hesitation made him pause. After all, the flagrant flame before him was simply an instrument controlled by a larger puppeteer.[break][break]

The magenta inferno that ensnared them burned brighter all around, casting the MOLTRES above in an eerie light. [break][break]

For a moment, he considered the tool in his hands. [break][break]

BARNABY FINCH had been born into a cage. Shackled from birth by the binding chains of TEAM ROCKET and contingent familial obligation. There was neither choice nor free will where his upbringing was concerned. His entire life had been dedicated to working within the confines of an organization that demanded obedience, to pivot and ploy and pander just to survive and garner the small influence he did have.[break][break]

He had never been allowed to choose his own master. Never had enough power or autonomy to do the sorts of things he truly wanted to do.[break][break]

His gaze broke from the COLLAR to look up toward the withered DYNA TREE looming above. From there, the weight of MOLTRES' ravenous stare pressed down upon him. Inherently, Barnaby knew his next decision would decide his fate.[break][break]

When he finally replied, it was not to the shade of PENELOPE LIVY. Now, he spoke only to MOLTRES.[break][break]

"We can give one another what we most desire."[break][break]

He raised the COLLAR to his throat—[break][break]

"Together."[break][break]

—and bound himself to the shadows.[break][break]

Immediately, he felt himself suffocating against the bite of hot metal pressed against his trachea. It was an escalating constriction, tighter and tighter and tighter, until it caused his surroundings to blur at the edges of his vision and his body to weaken. He could practically feel his lifeforce fading away.[break][break]

Just as he had in the Cave of Origin — where he and MOLTRES had first locked eyes — BARNABY FINCH fell to one knee in the presence of the LEGENDARY BIRD.[break][break]

Suddenly, an otherworldly roar pierced through the umbral realm.[break][break]

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1205934982258753546/1222009258741338132/gmoltres_roars.mp3?ex=6614a7cf&is=660232cf&hm=f9d932f7c0172b3eecda84d62b7f0f2357d464756290e3f4d20ecc91bbdd4f55&[/player][break]

With a great movement of its shadowed wings, the malevolent spirit swooped down from on high. Within seconds it landed with a fiery flare of magenta flames, its massive talons slamming into the shade of PENELOPE LIVY, causing it to dissipate in a plume of fire and ash.[break][break]

Staring down its hooked beak, MOLTRES regarded BARNABY FINCH with a pleased eye.

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[attr="class","omgentop"]LANTERNE OF LIGHT

[attr="class","omgenmid"]

SPECIAL EVENT THREAD

TARTARUS

[player]https://file.garden/ZXZrnWMYuz15frfJ/HOENN%20MUSIC/LEGENDARY%20BIRD%20BATTLE.mp3[/player][break]

Battle! Galarian Legendary Birds - Pokémon Sword & Shield

AND THE PLEASED EYE BEHOLDS ITS NEW INCARNATION. As every shade is dispelled, the sanguinary underworld hearkens to their fateful communion. The hooked beak opens. A stentorian cry demands attention—and announces the coming of infernal power.[break][break]

An aura of magenta-black emanates from its body. At first, it tugs at BARNABY FINCH's spirit. Threatens to tear soul from flesh and bone. However, the chthonic current shifts directions. Twisted energies surge through the Rocket Admin's body as the two become wicked one.

[attr="class","chosen"]YOU ARE WORTHY

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galarian moltres has chosen BARNABY FINCH, the infernal, as their avatar.

[break][break]

Barnaby receives the following perks:

• Barnaby can create, shape, and manipulate darkness. He can create areas of total darkness, create short-lived constructs out of darkness, and has increased mobility within this created dark.[break][break]
  
  Barnaby can cause the darkness he wields or summons to "burn" flamelessly. Targets in contact with the dark can be damaged over time.[break][break]
  
  This ability is different than Rocket Boss declan walsh's. Tempest Quinn's AVATAR STUDIES will reveal that the Boss' abilities are based around nightmares and shadows, which revolve around nightmarish hallucinations and sources of light.
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• Barnaby can manipulate the infinity energy (or energy in general) from both people and Pokemon. This requires physical contact; longer contact causes escalating levels of fatigue.
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• Barnaby can conjure a hypnotic flame in the palm of his hand to influence people and Pokemon. Those that are influenced can not completely remember his voice/face. (REQ: RPER PERMISSION)
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• Barnaby can change superficial aspects of his appearance (e.g. “shadows playing tricks on you,” Zorua’s illusion ability).
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• Barnaby can unleash a powerful burst of shadow-infused flames ONCE PER THREAD, creating a persisting area of effect that damages enemies and hinders movement by inflicting deep fatigue.
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• You may add GALARIAN MOLTRES to your personal computer and choose its moves like a gachapon pokemon.

EVENTUALLY, the underworld dissipates around them. For a moment, BARNABY FINCH may feel as if the GALARIAN MOLTRES would be fade too. How it wears the darkness, the stygian and sanguine so well. Yet, the Malevolent remains in reverence for the man—and so it shall until the end of days.

GUIDELINES

RULES

YOU MAY CONTINUE POSTING IN THIS THREAD AT YOUR LEISURE. If you would like to end the thread here, you may request archival through Moderator Requests.[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH