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Cass hasn't realised her mind drifting to even worse times, but upon Thea's touch and words, she looks up, and returns the smile faintly. "Yeah, we will," she lies, and makes a good effort in appearing more hopeful than she is. Or maybe it's the mask covering most of her face. She straightens her posture, still caught in near endless possibilities - it's actually only around 6² or 6^4 ... or worst case, they've got all of them.

The violent, gruesome scenario unfolds before her and she could not bear to look away. She notices Thea's efforts to shield Knight from the happenings, and she unconsciously also moves to block, without averting her own eyes. It's like she's burning the imagery to her mind, stomping every fiber of her that wants to be defiant like so often. (But, as she knows too well, ill weeds grow apace.)

She regards the mochi with apprehension, clearly remembering their encounters with them before, but ... She takes a deep breath, and eats one after Knight and Thea ate theirs. "At least they got the decency to make them taste," she says, "like some faerie food." And sure enough, the chains are reminiscent of those tales - don't eat their food, or you will never leave them anymore.

It only seems fitting that they'd be put to work then, and she simply follows. Thea's fall hits her with shock, but she also finds herself unable to move until after, following after Knight. She bites her lip, almost wanting to draw blood herself - but an infection here would be bad. She really needs to focus up, instead of wallowing in misery. "Guess we just got to be good little worker combees," she tries with a lighter tone, as she picks up some shards among the grit. Despite her featherlight grip, the edges would still cut, and she winces, flinches. Keep going, keep going ...

She would often look at Thea and Knight, but not have to offer anything to say. At Thea's frequent glances at their warden, Cass wonders if she's thinking what she often thinks. Part of her really wants to cover and help Thea's try, but she gently bumps her friend's shoulder, then shake her head a bit. "Not worth it. Nowhere to hide," she whispers to her. If offending has been met with gruesome death, she's not sure what the punishment for stealing would be - and it's just too easy to prove with unfamiliar clothes with no pockets (okay, that latter part is too familiar).

Knight Naito Thea Naito
tl;dr dummy ward
- eats mochi, goes to work
- discourages thea from stealing a tera shard atm

MjQf5RN3

Grigori joined the stranger at the bars, but did nothing but cross his arms and take stock of the environment. Those Megalopolans would surely wish to brain him, like he’d done to one of their comrades. Hell, he still had the hammer used to do the job. They saw that in his hands, he’d likely be put on a stake and brought to a golden brown.

“I would not tempt fate with your pleas,” he said. “These guards might see you as a liability.”

But there were plenty of people. Prisoners, None were immediately identifiable, but he heard plenty of screams from them all. And a massive, elegant bird. Ugly Ward?

Must’ve been a metaphorical ‘ugly’ they saw in him. He saw in himself. Unfortunately, despite his lack of desire to do certain acts, many desired to with him. It was annoying to turn them all down. But he couldn’t turn down the prospect of ‘lunch’, given in the form of mochi. He eyeballed the strange, purple rice sweet with a raised eyebrow.

Before he could react, some stranger voiced Grigori’s own personal doubts. Unfortunately, he had a good enough view to see the bird approach the cell and… do something. He didn’t know, but someone wouldn’t mangle themselves beyond recognition to worm past the bars to get closer to their demise, in the form of a single strike from its wing.

He ate a singular mochi and left the rest rot.

Outside, he quickly fell to his knees and picked up the first shard once the designated Megalopolan gave them orders. He was good at that, following orders. All he had to do was polish the shards? Sure.

But, quite obviously, there was a catch. Do the best, and he could see two other people in the ward. There was extreme danger there, but also extreme reward. If they were here for longer than a single day, then they could ‘meet up’. Make connections. Plot. All the better if there was at least one familiar Rocket face.

So he kept his eyes mostly down and focused on the shards. But they did wander, to the few groups on either side of him and priam conrad . On the left were three main culprits, but they were all only vaguely familiar. Like he’d seen their eyes before, their body types, but had no way to know for sure. Impossible to truly predict who they were.

But the right… he knew those eyes anywhere. Sure, he could still be wrong, but it meant his own eyes occasionally flickered to the right, to the one man he loathed, but also was genuinely glad to know suffered the same fate. Was at the exact same rank as he. If that was Zev Harcourt there, then he could rest easy knowing this wasn’t hell.

That man would be suffering far, far worse than the grunt, if that were the case.

---

Tl;dr
 - Ugly ward? Internal ugliness counted
 - Oh hey maybe don't grab the bars you might end up like that
 - Oh god oh fuck that guys fucking dead that's so fucked up
 - A good grunt gets to work without complains, and he's had 31 years of experience (Wants to get into that three person meeting to help strategize, in case it matters)
 - Doesn't recognize anyone on the left, but he could never forget the eyes of Zev Harcourt (but there is always a chance he is wrong, so he doesn't call out(Get FUCKED Zev I'll out BUSY WORK YOU ANY DAY OF THE WEEK THIS IS MY PRIME))
O8FHwz|s

Continued from here...

Oscar nodded lightly, letting out a impressed whistle. He was playing it cool, but if he were not wearing a mask it would have been fairly obvious that he was freaking out. He was sharing a cell with an Elite Four member? A deathly ill Elite Four member? Oscar could not decide if this meant he was lucky or unlucky; on one hand this provided him a superb opportunity to provide a devastating blow to the League but on the other...

It was not right, taking advantage of his current state. Oscar had what could be charitably called shit tier values, but even he had lines he did not cross. Yet he somehow remained undecided, open to the possibility of taking out such a valuable League asset to reinsert himself into Rocket's power structure. For now, he would continue to play the guardian angel.

"I was wonderin' who was gonna replace Callan." He said casually, not skipping a beat in the conversation. His training was serving him well. "You know, I've been meaning to challenge--" Oscar was cut off as a thunderous noise came from the center of the ward. Oscar twirled around, watching carefully to see what was transpiring. It took some time, but eventually the center platform descended to reveal their warden. Oscar relayed what he saw to Navy in a hushed tone.

"Their leader seems to be--a large bird pokemon--or at least the megalopolans are treating it like their leader. I don't recognize it. It bears a resemblance to our masks though." Oscar took note of the crates, balking as he read their labels. "Ugly ward--ugly? Ugly!?" Were they implying that Oscar was--no that was not possible. I mean Oscar was not conventionally attractive by any means but he certainly was not ugly. Perhaps they meant the actual physical appearance of the ward, which was indeed very ugly. Yes that must be it, they were simply being literal. Oscar almost felt silly for getting flustered.

Trays of bizarre pastries were brought to each cell. As they were delivered, one of the megalopolans would provide an introduction. Oscar would simply let Navy listen to the spiel himself, his ears still worked fine after all. As angry cries rang out in response, Oscar took a closer look at their food. They were not pastries it turned out, but rather large helpings of mochi ice cream. "How curious..." Oscar said while rubbing the chin of his mask. How come they looked both enticing and revolting?

Then the bird made an example out of one of the prisoners. Oscar looked up just in time to watch the gruesome scene, gasping as he watched the poor fucker turn himself into a human pretzel. Oscar was rightfully horrified, being able to do nothing else but mutter "Holy fuck..." as a reaction. If that was what awaited dissenters, Oscar would make no attempt to rebel--for now. As he saw others eat the mochi, Oscar would pick up their cell's tray and push it onto the desk in front of Navy. "Our warden just willed a man to break his own body, so we should do as they say. Eat up." Oscar grabbed a mochi and ate it without hesitation. It was sickeningly sweet, satisfying yet it left a heavy feeling within his stomach. As his chain morphed into the bars, Oscar began making movements to help Navy over to their work.

"Come one, I'm guessing you won't be getting any special treatment for being sick." As Oscar prepped Navy, he would briefly try to get a roster of recognizable allies going. The only person he could name was Zev Harcourt , whose voice was unmistakable. Perhaps other Rockets would be able to pick out Oscar and they could all form a plan to escape--eventually.

AQort1fK

tl;dr
--Oscar freaks out internally about Navy 's identity.
--Oscar watches the introduction and is Not down with the sickness.
--Oscar downs the mochi yum yum.
--Oscar helps Navy get over to their work so he does not get killed.
--Oscar hopes other Rockets within the ward will be able to recognize him.
--Ugly ward is ugly

"I'd say in any other circumstances it's nice to meet you Alba--"

There'd be little time to respond with his name before their attention would be diverted towards the sound of a bulky platform descending, eyes landing right on a primate and its avian companion, both unfamiliar faces, but what tied them together was the way the same chains they wore had been only like accessories to them. Laurence swallowed his bated breath; this did not spell anything good for them. Those were the exact same chains he’d tried learning about…The question would be, whether they were the ones who pulled the strings.

Laurence could only watch as the crate slowly approached them and hit the ground with a careless rumble that made the doctor jump. Munkidori hopped off the platform with its mischievous grin, its eyes glancing over Laurence and Alba as its henchmen came forward, giving their introduction of what could only be the group of Pokémon they'd seen earlier.

Everything the henchman said had almost left Laurence at a loss for words, he had no idea what the three-day war could have been, nor the destruction that it could have wreaked on the Pokemon, however, seeing that he had been captured, clearly they had been indiscriminately taking in any sort of person. It mattered not if hands were directly in the demise of them or not, every hoennite had their hands stained in whatever blood was shed.

Alba's quiet rebuttal admittedly has Laurence raise a hand to almost try to silence him, the sight of a live execution enough to make any man want to hide from whatever sick spotlight Munkidori had shone on the unfortunate victim.

“That is not what they think…And seeing how we’re in this situation, I can’t say we have much to argue about right now either.”

Laurence whispered under his breath, hoping Alba would catch wind of what had been said and quiet down a bit, for fear of getting the same treatment. He’d quietly wait as the Megalopolans fished out the items from the boxes, the same sickly purple mochi that had been found at the scene of various previous issues he’d seen. The Venusaur, the Ariados…He’d take another breath, remembering the effects on the patients, the rumors: Moodswings, Paling of the Face, Heterochromia. It was all the reason more to not to eat them…But he had little choice.

The bite hadn’t been as horrid as he’d thought, the taste almost pleasant had it not been that he could feel his pulse heighten, the tightness of his neck increasing as he could feel it connect to the bars of the prison cell bars. Another discovery, another issue. When it came time for their tasks, Laurence quietly got to his, without complaint, rather as he worked, his hands brutally suffering from no gloves, he simply eyes about, trying to find any familiar faces in the ward who would be brave enough to repeatedly go towards the center of the ward. However, it is only then that he hears Alba’s request for his name. He seemed to have forgotten.

“Laurence. The name is Laurence.”

He tries to say it without much of a concern in his tone, though it fails. Rather, as he speaks, he finds Alba hunched over the crystals and whispering his pleas to them, bringing back the fuzzy and vague memory of howard slayte , and his claim of wishes of humanity…

Alba Evovae

---

x0etXOXm
* Laurence says hello to Alba
* Laurence witnesses a murder 
* Laurence eats Mochi
* Laurence decides that he will do his work, for fear that he will be next.

Ettie's worldview was a simple one; a person came in one of four categories; friend/family, foe, predator, or prey. Someone was a potential ally or packmate, an intruder or competitor, something to be avoided and feared, or ultimately something to be hunted down and eaten. Those four categories were all that a wolf needed to worry about, after all.

The strange monkey pokemon, that came down the elevator, was a predator. Something that became quickly apparent, when said simian made an example out of one of their fellow prisoners. Ettie, though somewhat shaken at the sight, was not necessarily sickened. She was no stranger to blood and gore; although to understand that this one could end a person's life so easily...

... Munkidori was a predator - and Ettie could only hope that she wasn't to be prey.

Thus, as the mochi is dispensed, she eats. She does not trust the food, knowing the troubles that had occured in the days that led up to this, knowing that vague sense of ill that the poisonous anomalies had caused... And yet, despite the pattern recognition telling her that this was something to be avoided, the alternative - to starve, or even die - forced her to push down those instincts.

And as the way forward became clear with a tethered chain, Ettie would follow Andrew Fisher to the pile of shards and stones.

In contrast to him, Ettie had a somewhat easier time in plucking out the shards. Her fingers were deft - being no stranger to plucking berries from bramble bushes and the like - and when she did get scraped or cut, she'd manage to keep her reactions to a wince.

But, this did not spare her from her own shards mysteriously disappearing, when she turned away from the pile she had accumulated for but a moment. She is left glancing around in confusion, until she hears Munkidori's snicker - and she understands then. She dares not even meet its gaze though, simply allowing herself to appear small and uninteresting as she ducks her head to try and start up a new pile of shards - this one more carefully kept.

As Andrew speaks, she glances to him - and it's hard for her to place what sort of expression she must have right now, besides the need to avoid drawing the warden's attention as much as possible. "Is okay," She eventually responds - her voice low, soft. "Will stay safe... Will avoid being prey..."

But, there soon comes the sounds of a tumble; and Ettie looks to the side to see as another young girl is picking herself up - scraped from the rocks and shards that she had fell upon. Sympathy fills Ettie, and she spares Andrew but a brief glance - "I help friends," - before making her way to Eris Halla .

Her approach is careful, ginger, as if Eris were as much a skittish prey-animal as Ettie felt in this place. But as the wolfchild nears, she settles in next to the other to help Eris sort out the shards. "Is okay?" Ettie asks, briefly looking her up and down. "Ettie help."

Perhaps Ettie could keep an eye out, so that the both of them would be better prepared the next time Munkidori tried to interfere.

PRISMATIC PENITENTIARY

Imprisoned Investigator--Prison Sucks

Ever seemed like he couldn't give up the theory that the Megalopolans were all behind this and that they were all merely waiting to be eaten up. Elaine could not help but want to tear down that theory.

But now isn't the time for that.

Elaine took a deep sigh. She could probably present a good argument against it, but there was no need to be striking out someone else's possibilities just yet. What they truly lacked here was information and until they could get that, the amount of possibilites that they could come up with for what was happening was sorely limited.

"Who knows?" Elaine shrugged before leaning back against the wall and crossing her arms. "I'm sure whoever is behind this will make themselves known eventually."

As whirring reverberated throughout the ward, the platform began to descend. "And speak of the dev...il...?"

Despite her attempt at trying to make light of her timing, she found herself stopping as she saw what had been coming down on the platform. Three Pokemon, each wearing a chain had descended with the platform before it stopped on the ground.

As she watched what was going, she could hardly believe it. The largest one pulled out several crates that read 'For the Weakling Ward' before it remained off the platform.

If it weren't for the fact that they were behind bars, Elaine would have taken offense to the insinuation by someone else that she was weak. That judgement belonged to her and her alone.

Regardless, the platform once again began to descend, this time until it disappeared from view, taking the other two Pokemon--a bird-like one and a monke--along with it.

If one Pokemon left boxes here and stayed, that meant there was a chance that the other two would probably be doing the same down below. That meant there were definitely two floors down below, probably with prisoners themselves, though she was unable to catch the names of the other wards on the crates before they descended. On top of that, there was a chance that there were others on higher floors.

Cataloging what she had come to deduce about the structure they were all in, she listened to the greeting from the Megalopolan who clearly looked to be nothing more than a puppet as it spoke.

Wronged this creature? Three-Day war? Elaine had no idea what the representative was talking about considering this was the first time she had ever seen these creatures and even the chains that wrapped around them. It was not the first time she had been part of a group blamed for some great evil, but it still made her blood boil.

She clenched her fist, but before she could slam it into something and shout out, a cacophony erupted elsewhere. One had slammed the tray presented to them to the ground. And as quickly as they rebelled, they were immediately brutalized.

Elaine was a detective. She had seen her fair share of mutilated corpses and had seen many mutilations in progress before, but witnessing the act in person would have been enough to make her take a step back if she hadn't already had her back to a wall.

She grit her teeth as she let her fist unfurl. She had just barely been saved for a similar fate by someone else who had taken the punishment before she could transgress.

After calming down for a moment, Elaine had come to understand something. They could not rebel. Yet.

They did not have the strength to oppose their captors yet.

They had to bide their time. They needed to wait for their opportunity.

So, she silently ate the mochi. Elaine must not have had a meal in a while because the food she had just eaten almost resembled ambrosia at this point.

After the chains extended from their necks to the cell doors, she heeded the instructions the entire ward had been given.

"Well, we have no tools, so that's probably the best way to deal with it." Elaine sighed as she walked towards one of the nearest crates. As she did, her eyes trailed across the entire space. Numerous people had already walked out of their cells and had begun to chip away at their work. Above them was a strange light that felt a bit too omnimpresent for her liking. And then to her side was the corpse of the one who had been brutalized laying on the ground, untouched.

She was almost tempted to take one of the bones with her and fashion it into a knife using the wall or the ground. The thought of desecrating a corpse like that was not a welcome one but definitely one she had to consider.

However, she could also see a couple of others trying to pocket objects. There was no point in being the guinea pig yet. She had no idea if they would frisk everyone before they returned to their cells or even search their cells.

In other words, she needed to let the others be the test run for this while she remained in a safe-ish zone for now.

Getting to work, she began to sit on the ground and smash the rocks into the ground and against each other just like her cellmate had suggested. It was a solid idea, so she was hardly surpised when she was getting some semblance of chipping and fragmenting done.

"If only that were the case. I'd love nothing more for that desire to be returning to home but I doubt our captors are going to make it that easy to leave." The other young man was hopeful, but even he could clearly see that the situation needed a bit more objectivity to it.

As she stood up after getting enough fragments to return to a nearby crate, she looked at Ever. "For the time being, let's make sure we keep compliant. There's no safe zone here and they all can probably hear anything that has a hint of rebelliousness in it so just keep a watch of what you say and do. At least for now."

As she had finished saying that and dumping the shards she had already been able to create, she saw something in the corner of her vision that made her eyes widen.

Okidogi had grasped her chain a mere few feet away and immediately began to pull. As she found herself lifted upon the ground and flying, she felt like her breath had been squeezed out of her throat, but it wasn't over. The green Pokemon immediately tackled her, causing her to fly in the opposite direction.

As she flew, she could see it let go of the chain, start laughing and pointing at her. Had it deemed even what she said another sign of rebellion or had it been merely trying to mess around with her as it was everyone else?

The answer didn't matter as she slammed against the side of another crate a few yards away, causing it to tip over. As it did, she rolled over the side that then became its top before landing on the pile of rocks that had fallen over from within.

"Agh...." She couldn't even muster a cry of pain. It was hardly the worst thing she had faced. She had once been flung onto the surface of a meteorite before so hard she tore up her shoulder, arm, and chest. Compared to that, this was nowhere near that level.

As she caught her breath enough to sigh, she got back up off the ground and stretched a bit till she felt like she could move again before pulling the crate back up to the proper orientation and tossing everything that had fallen out back in.

As soon as she finished, she had caught sight of something--or someone--familiar. Long silver hair and long black hair. What were the odds that the two of them were both in each others' viscinities.

"Violet? Kyr?" She uttered both their names as she walked up to the ones she could swore she had recognized. Seeing friends she knew at this point was a greater ambrosia than even the mochi had been--even if it meant people close to her had been trapped too. "Is that really you?"

But she could still just reach out and hug them. In fact, she damn well tried.

---

TL;DR:

• Weakling Ward
• Elaine considers creating a bone knife from the corpse's bones but opts to watch what happens to anyone else who attempts to smuggle something
• Complies and agrees with Ever on how to proceed
• Tells Ever there is no real safe space right now and that they need to bide their time
• Gets tackled by Okidogi and smashes into a different crate
• Recognizes Violet Fairbanks and Kyrenai Black and ends up running to give the two of them a hug.

Tags: ever blackwell , Violet Fairbanks , Kyrenai Black
vzuivs30