[attr="class","main"]

Rumours of danger have attracted the attention of more than just the Rangers. Cillian hasn't bothered with disguise this day as he slinks through Petalburg Woods like a shadow himself; he had no plans to stay within the bounds of the law.[break][break]

Ahead of him, a Luxray prowls, her dark coat more purple than the usual black. Her mouth is parted to taste the air, tail swishing with the joy of the hunt. Black claws dig into black ice as she bends down to sniff at the anomaly, casting a glance over her shoulder to where Cillian followed. Her eyes gleam in the dimmed light beneath the forest canopy.[break][break]

Cillian can feel his own excitement building, heart rate picking up at the thought of what terror might haunt these woods.[break][break]

He doesn't expect the girl, but Scathach warns him of her presence, fur rising along the Luxray's spine as she crouches low. Cillian considers retreat for but a second before he doubles down. She was alone but for her Pokémon. Even if she called for backup, he could escape before they arrived.[break][break]

With SHADOW MIASMA stalking his steps, Cillian steps into her view.[break][break]

"Looking for something?"

[break][break]

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Cillian Quinn

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The forest seemed to fall quiet now that Yuina had found the trace of this dangerous Pokemon lurking within the trees somewhere... It was unsettling... She looked around initially through the tree trunks, listening closely, wondering if it was nearby or if they might have a bit longer to search...[break][break]
Ayashi's ears flicked at each little movement, each little sound, his hooves shifting in the grass, and he huffed a heavy breath at the sound of something approaching. Yuina turned quickly, startled at the sound of a voice regarding her now, she hadn't been expecting to see anyone else in the area, especially given the recent reports of the Pokemon roaming here...[break][break]
"Wh-what? Who are you," she fumbled, looking at the man, he... Didn't look familiar, was he another ranger that she hadn't met yet? She'd met an awful lot of the other league organization since the emergence of that tree, she didn't think he looked familiar...[break][break]
Ayashi stepped with heavy hoof stomps, closing the gap between him and Yuina, eyeing the feline that loomed just beside the man, and Yuina too looked at the Luxray... A species she recognized from Tempest Quinn, but... Where his was brightly colored and adorned with the swirling patterns of illumina energy this one was... An exact opposite... In the strangest way...[break][break]
"There's a dangerous Pokemon in this area, you should...," Yuina began, for that brief moment assuming her position as a ranger in the position to protect the area and those who could be affected by this danger's presence but... The longer she looked at him... Were her eyes playing tricks on her? The shifting shadows of tree leaves and branches dancing on the ground around his feet...? Or...[break][break]
Off in the near distance, the sound of snapping branches, a gutteral, monstrous howl, and Rasza's roar... Yuina turned quickly, Rasza's cry echoing through the tree trunks, fading into the swaying tree leaves.[break][break]
Yuina glanced quickly behind her to the man, but there was no time, she moved to leap onto Ayashi's back and heaved one leg over his shoulders bidding him forward.

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"You don't know? Hm."[break][break]

Cillian's lips curve into a smirk, amusement glimmering in his gaze. He doesn't introduce himself in spite of her question, and the Luxray at his side bares her teeth in silent warning to the Wyrdeer.[break][break]

He chuckles when she offers warning.[break][break]

"I can handle myself, don't worry."[break][break]

For all she knew, the Luxray at his side could be that very Pokémon. Scathach certainly looks the part, her dark fur rippling along her spine. Cillian carries himself with confidence, absent of the fear that one should expect from a civilian stumbling into something they don't understand. At the snapping of branches, the terrible howl, he looks more excited than afraid.[break][break]

A soft click of his tongue urges Scathach forward, and the SHADOW MIASMA seems to quicken their steps as they pursue the sound.

[break][break]

[attr="class","franntag"]

Cillian Quinn

[attr="class","frannmain"]

In that one moment before Yuina turned to rush off towards Rasza's cries in the distance, she eyed the man at his comments. Who was he really, that he seemed... Surprised? Amused... That she didn't know who he was... She tried to sift through the faces she knew so far, but nothing came to her... And for that reason, Yuina had a sinking feeling that started to nestle into the pit of her stomach...[break][break]
The feline that stood beside him was forboding enough, and that... no... There wasn't anything around his feet in the shadowed grass, there couldn't be... But... She wasn't particularly keen on looking to find out if she was right or not...[break][break]
Yuina wasn't sure why he was there in the woods, but if she had to venture any kind of guess, it was likely due to the Pokemon said to lurk here... The one that Rasza had just crossed, and if there were any kind of conculsions to draw, Yuina knew that she needed to find it and take care of it first...[break][break]
Leaving him behind as quickly as she could, Ayashi rushed through the trees on his hooves, bounding around the trunks and leaping over fallen trees with ease, following the sound of another clash ahead of them, another roar from Rasza bursting through the otherwise quiet forest.[break][break]
In the near distance, Yuina could see her, the Charizard on the ground, claws slashing and wings flared. Yuina leaped immediately from Ayashi's back, hitting the ground running as she rushed towards Rasza, stopping quickly as she looked on in terror... That black ice, it was strewn all over the ground, it had struck Rasza and now her tail was frozen to the ground. Rasza roared furiously, swinging her wings around, trying to push Yuina away, for within the trees, the monster emerged, a low growl playing on its bared fangs.[break][break]
It was there, standing in front of them now, an Arcanine but... not.... this was as much an Arcanine as that man's feline was a Luxray... But the worst part, perhaps the most terrifying thing to Yuina as she made eye contact with it, feeling its darkness...[break]
She could swear she'd seen this monster before... Somewhere in the deepest, darkest parts of her thoughts...

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It was beautiful.[break][break]

Little could catch Cillian's eye so completely as a newfound shadow, and his feverish excitement shifts to awe as he watches the Arcanine stalk forward through the wood. At his side, Scathach grumbles affirmation that this, indeed, was the prey they'd sought.[break][break]

His attention shifts to the girl, who'd seemed so eager to reach this place before him. She seems haunted, somehow, as if there was something to this scenario that Cillian couldn't quite place. He didn't have the pieces to make this fit.[break][break]

He can ask only, "Is it yours?"[break][break]

The SHADOW MIASMA, subtle before in its presence, swells now to a dominant fog that cloaks Cillian and his feline companion. It would be reasonable to assume it to be under Cillian's control, for the movement of his hand seems to pull it closer.

[break][break]

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Cillian Quinn

[attr="class","frannmain"]

Locking eyes with the monster, Yuina could only stand there, staring, intently... Nothing came to her, she couldn't find anything in the deepest recesses of her thoughts, still that wall, that shadow held firm in the back of her mind, a darkness that she had yet to get through to try and remember anything of her past life. And yet, looking at this... This canine, really looking at it, studying it, Yuina couldn't shake the terrible, awful feeling that she knew it for some reason... That same hole in her chest that she felt compelled to do all of the 'good' that she'd been doing lately...[break][break]
That couldn't be just a coincidence...[break][break]
Everything fell still and quiet it felt like, Yuina could hear nothing, she felt nothing, frozen in the paralyzing stare of the monster before her, until that man emerged, his voice shattering that silence...[break][break]
Is it hers...?[break][break]
Was it hers...[break][break]
She glanced, breaking her eye contact with the canine, only to find herself staring at the shadow that now very clearly shifted around the man, reaching out to the feline, under his control...[break][break]
This all now became so much bigger than just a dangerous Pokemon on the loose...[break][break]
The beast found now that it had two targets of interest, never mind the Charizard that it had pinned to the ground, and it stood up straighter with an open maw, regarding the pair that had approached. The tension grew, the silence stifling, as if it were debating which set of opposition it was going to choose to undertake, but given that one final moment, bidding Rasza to remain still, Yuina looked to the man again.[break][break]
"Who are you, and why are you here," she questioned, speaking as evenly as she could muster, but her caution was palpable... She could only assume that she was in the presence of an avatar...

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She doesn't answer. She poses an earlier question a second time, and this time, he decides to answer.[break][break]

"Cillian."[break][break]

A name that struck some with terror, given his infamy in the region. He was one of Hoenn's Most Wanted, known Rocket underboss and, indeed, Avatar. Any doubt of whether or not he was that Cillian could doubtless be dismissed by the MIASMA.[break][break]

Though on the surface he appears relaxed, unhurried, he prepares himself to lunge should she reach for any sort of communication or back-up.[break][break]

"I think you can answer the second question for yourself, mm?"[break][break]

He was a master of shadows, a collector.[break][break]

"So I'll ask again: is it yours?"

[break][break]

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Cillian Quinn

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At that moment, Yuina wished she hadn't asked... Of anyone that she was inclined to stay away from, it would be anyone that Navy had warned her about...[break][break]
"They'll kill us, and lose no sleep over doing it..."[break][break]
And yet... at least for this very moment... She was still alive. Should she expect to be struck down the second this situation turns...? Was she going to make it out of this forest...?[break][break]
He regarded her second question, again eyeing the beast that stood in wait, as if gauging the situation for itself, calculating, watching... Arcanine were intelligent... But this was no regular Arcanine... What was it exactly...?[break][break]
If he was here for the Arcanine, then it couldn't be anything common, anything normal... Nothing that should be out in the open... But... his own question came again... and Yuina wasn't prepared for her own response, it came almost reflexively... [break][break]
"Yes, it is mine," And for once... An answer to a question she wasn't expecting... Didn't feel like a lie...

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He nods, as if that makes sense.[break][break]

"I thought it might be. It would've ripped your throat out by now if it weren't."[break][break]

That wasn't strictly true. Not all Shadow Pokémon were as unwaveringly aggressive as his brood... but looking at this one, at the clear threat present in its flashing jaws, he thinks he could be right.[break][break]

A pity. He'd hoped to lay claim to the beast, but without Lugia's influence, it would be nigh impossible to turn it against its master.[break][break]

He could take it by force. The option sits shelved in the back of his mind.[break][break]

"Do you know what it is?" Pale fingers card through purple-black fur. The Luxray purrs. "What they are?"[break][break]

Who I am?

[break][break]

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Cillian Quinn

[attr="class","frannmain"]

The situation was so delicate, Yuina had to imagine that anything could turn the tides, and she was sure that even in this moment they weren't in her favor. The only thing that she had going for her right now was that she was still alive...[break][break]
Tapping a pokeball, she returned Rasza, the dragon was distressed still, and she couldn't risk any sudden movements upsetting the incredibly fragile balancing act Yuina was doing in standing between two very likely forces that would have at her without a second thought... That left Ayashi, who stood on bated breath... Waiting... It was all he could do...[break][break]
At her utterance, a strange confidence in her answer, the feeling of truth behind it, the Arcanine's seething eyes darted to Yuina, its maw heaving in black, frozen breaths, but it still did not waver. She had no doubt that it could fell her in one swift motion, but... Was that really what it came down to? Did... Did it remember her too? If she commanded it... Would it listen...?[break][break]
"I don't," more truth, there was no point in lying, in deceiving... Whatever she could say, she felt like it would only make things worse... He clearly knew very well what these Pokemon were...[break][break]
"I haven't seen another one, to know that they were different," she commented, another truth. This Luxray and this Arcanine were the first of this darkness that she had seen... If she'd only found the Arcanine first regardless, she would have had nothing to compare it to.

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Rather than calling for help, the girl strips herself further of defenses when she recalls her Pokémon. Perhaps she had no idea who she was dealing with... or perhaps she knew exactly who he was, and understood that they were ill-matched.
[break][break]

Either way, he accepts the silent gesture as a white flag. She was no threat, yet.
[break][break]

"It's a Shadow Pokémon." There's a touch of reverence in his voice. "My specialty, you could say."
[break][break]

They called her Shadow Lugia, after all. She was a queen among her kind, the only shadowed legend he knew of. And she was his patron, the source of the smoke that surrounds him.
[break][break]

"Do you know who I am?"

[break][break]

[attr="class","franntag"]

Cillian Quinn

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A Shadow Pokemon...[break]
She'd never heard the term before and yet... Clearly, she must have at some point in her life, if she was claiming this Pokemon to be hers... She'd always wondered, how much did she know about a given idea in her life before...? Was this a path that was telling her, she might have been involved with and knew about far more than she may have initially thought...?[break][break]
Keeping Ayashi at bay, at the mention of its true nature, Yuina looked to the Arcanine that still stood off to the side, not quite in opposition, but she still couldn't be sure that she could know if it was hers to work with... It was watching, carefully, like a true hunter... Likely waiting to see the outcome, the true enemy, to know where it rested in the pecking order here... It was smart...[break][break]
He posited another question, if she knew who he was? Yuina looked back, still stuck between him and the Arcanine, she didn't dare move too much.[break]
"I only know your name, from someone else," Yuina returned, but... she was still alive...[break][break]
"You could tell me who you are," Yuina offered, it was bold perhaps, in spite of the tremble that was in her voice... But if he intended to kill her where she stood, like Navy made it sound... She needed to draw her own conclusions, while she still had the chance...

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Cillian cants his head. "Is that so?"[break][break]

She seemed nervous, but not terrified. And when she asks him for clarification, he realises that a name might be all of the information she has on him. He could keep it that way, walk away a mystery, but...[break][break]

If she was curious, perhaps she might be softened to their cause.[break][break]

"Rocket underboss, Avatar of Lugia, the Harbinger." His smile is cut glass. "You haven't told me your name."

[break][break]