"are you fucking kidding me?" she snarls. his voice lowers and hers rises to an incredulous octave. the rest of the world doesn't exist. the visionary doesn't exist. the peacemaker doesn't exist. just this insensible man who can't, for the life of him, seem to keep his nose out of rocket's business. 

"when have i ever cared what you did in your spare time? but you know this isn't - " okay. gods, how many hours has she spent meticulously combing through the amnesty process? looking up bylaws to ensure he can keep custody of delta?

how many hours has she stayed away, trusting him to trust her?

"fine."

she bares her teeth and then shoulders past him. if he doesn't want to listen to reason, then fine. calcifer spares him a passing glance, smiling cheekily, and sparks a few embers. he dips his head when they come upon nomi. his nostrils flare. his tail twitches. 

and then he lowers his head slightly. freya balks, considering. her words come out with less venom than previously intended.

"and your mission is what exactly? uncover truths our scientists are already researching? but with blood money instead of government funding?" her nose wrinkles. "eva trusts you. and king... i'll hear you out. because of them."

Naomi Sato KING WAYLAND Eva Morales
RJ6OshVB

☉

In that moment, Eva could never see a life where they weren’t at each other’s throat. Forgive him? Delusions. “Good, because that’s exactly where it belongs,” she snapped back, waving a rather dismissive hand at his feet where she metaphorically did lay the blame. He was just as guilty as Matias. They both were stained by their sins and neither of them seemed to try to scrub it off - she was just caught in the middle. She was trapped by love and misguided truths but it was so ingrained in her now that the scars would be permanent, festering wounds.

“Ugh,” she dismissed the conversation with Freya, turning to start walking towards Nomi and essentially keep her attention off the turncoat in their midsts. One he ignored returning the Lucario, Eva thought it was only appropriate she have a pokemon to watch her back, “To be clear, I don’t trust him,” she clarified, pointing back towards King as Freya confronted Nomi.

Eva plucked a pokeball off her belt and released the IRON LEAVES. After sparing a quick glance back at the Lucario and King, she patted the tamed paradox on the side, “You got my back, yeah?” Her choice of the Iron Leaves was two fold, a strong member of her team that could certainly hold its own, but also as a reflection of MATIAS SILPH and Virizion as a shameless tease.

She stood amongst Nomi and Freya, listening to what she had to say in response to the dragoness.

---

KL8ePo4c
Total: 850

king receives a withering look in response, but she holds her tongue. if looks could kill, her body count would be well up there, but king's always been impervious to the venom in her stare. it wouldn't do well to argue aloud though, not with tensions as high as they are. 

it reminds her of what they were like together, at the beginning. before they really stumbled upon their forgiveness. 

she hates it. 

the visionary's attempt at a joke - is that what it is? - only makes her brace. they are, by all accounts, fraternizing with the enemy. both silphs have been looking for any reason to topple her from her post and this could be just the fodder they need. but eva trusts her. 

and because king said she wouldn't, she listens. waits. reasons. 

she needs help from both factions and their avatars. defecting from rocket now would only ostracize her from both parties so asking her to convert is out of the question, but a ceasefire is not only improbable - it's impossible. 

rocket is a terrorist organization. its people are redeemable, but a ceasefire means giving ground. when this is all over, hoenn could become the next kanto, and no one at hq would resign the region to that same fate.

"yes, well, we very often don't get what we want. how do your superiors feel about you going to the league's best and brightest for a ceasefire? if you haven't told them, which i'm assuming you haven't, it's because they're unswayable. and worse, they'll hurt you. or they'll hurt the people you love. am i close?"

her gaze hardens. 

"i don't want the people i love to get hurt because some idealist thinks she can save the world. tell me how you're going to do it."

Naomi Sato Eva Morales KING WAYLAND
Qh0mOVlP

☉

Eva found it harder and harder to keep a believable poker face. Her normally soft and welcoming features had disappeared the moment they encountered King. His infection only spread, and she twisted her lips into a hardened scowl when he approached, letting her eyes roll deeply as he chastised Freya to listen. At that moment, Eva wanted to be anywhere but here, “She knows how to listen,” her lips barely moved and the hushed growl was mostly for herself. She crossed her arms over her chest in an involuntary, defensive posture.

“For what it’s worth, I agree,” Eva spoke softly, just to Freya which is where her gaze wandered. Freya would remember that Eva proposed the same thing at the last AQUA Initiative meeting which she was nearly crucified for. The DRK Triad didn’t see black and white, Rocket and League. They saw a divided Hoenn, wounded prey ripe for the picking, “We’ll never convince both sides to come to a peace,” she continued, having expressed the same sentiment to Nomi when she visited Eva at her cottage. That was a truth that pained her to say out loud. As a peacemaker, it was difficult to accept that peace was not an option, “We just need enough big players on both sides to keep the others in check as long our goals align,” some may call it treason, and Eva would have as well at one point. But now, with Rayquaza’s influence rooted deep in her soul, the faction war was a silly game. They care little for the quarrel of mortals. Hoenn was the priority, “Hoenn comes first,” she voiced out loud, taking her definitive stance.

“Nomi’s ideals are a big ask,” she admitted that much, “But Hoenn must persevere. And we’ll burn anyone that tries to get in our way,” she spoke on behalf of her patron now, a fact rather than a threat, “ And we will take all the help we can get," Alone the gods were powerful, but together they were unstoppable, "We unite under a common banner, a vision of hope for a future in which Hoenn lives. We all fought against Kyurem. When it counted, we were all there.”

---

zZ6l6EOQ
Total: 1050

eva grumbles something under her breath and freya prays king doesn't hear it; they skirt by it all the same and eva is the temper to freya's flame, guiding her frustrations with validations and pointing them towards resolution. it's in her will to fight it. 

her teeth grind. 

she can't burn anyone that gets in her way. she can't put a target on her back. not as long as she has king. not as long as he has delta. there are some risks, without love, that she would have taken. before him, before all of this, she would throw caution to the wind and plunge her whole self into the fire if it meant the possibility of making a difference. 

"and that cost us reshiram," she growls out, though conviction leaves her as the visionary looked up at the unown-k. all color bleeds away from her eyes and freya's hand moves to the hilt of her sword, muscles on a hairpin trigger. 

blessed by the gods; she wants to laugh, but king reacts, ready for the fight, and freya thinks it could be a trick! those could be our people!

and then they come. water explodes outward. black-suited assassins move like a murder. freya's venomous gaze fixes on the almost-smug prophet - she set us up - but calcifer snaps in front of her nose, leveling his eye at her in warning. 

she draws her blade and as it shifts to her opposite hand, it splits in twain. the quiver at her hip spits out an arrow at her command and she strings it.

"go," she snaps and wind rakes over them all as calcifer takes off like a bullet, bathing himself in draconic fire to hammer into the nearest assailant.

Naomi Sato KING WAYLAND Eva Morales
xG6vktQn

☉

Nomi’s vague and threatening words hung in the air like the whistle of a bomb. You know what’s coming, and there’s no avoiding the explosive chaos in the after math.

Bad fucking time.

People feared prophets before they accepted them. A prophecy that sowed danger is no friend to the doubtful.

Eva sneered back and King becuase that’s the only facial expression she can manage when she looked him straight in the eye. Calcifer is off like a bullet and Freya is notching arrows before all the figures even burst through the falls. One disappears in dragon fire and a flurry of MAGICAL LEAVES quickly follow, peppering the rushing assassins like a machine gun.

---

Pg1uoVE2
Total: 1200