It was not the first creature that Elisabeth had felled in the field of battle, and it would not be the last. She watched Dashie perish with all the cool indifference of witnessing the natural interplay of predator and prey in the wild.[break][break]

The strong lived, and the weak died. It was why she had striven to scrub herself of her weakness as much as humanly possible, denying its existence in the hopes that this would make it disappear entirely.[break][break]

"Do you think that Tapu Fini and Wo-chien view me as their friend?" she asked him, utterly astonished at the absurdity of this suggestion. "Poor misguided boy. Do you truly believe they view me as their equal?"[break][break]

The laugh that crawled out of her conveyed her disbelief at that notion. If anything, they'd dangled her like a puppet on long, tangled strings--power in exchange for loss of agency. It was a bitter exchange to accept, but she'd learned to take power wherever she could claim it. Being powerless had been enough to make her do anything to avoid knowing that fate again.[break][break]

"I had no intention of fighting you," Elisabeth reminded him, staying Wo-chien with a raise of her hand. She wanted him to listen. She wanted him to understand. "Dashie's death is the result of your own stubborn pride and zealotry. Had you let me pass unbothered, I would have extended you the same courtesy."[break][break]

She'd assumed that might be enough to earn passage, and moved to ride her Glastrier onwards. Instead, a blur of shadowed fur and teeth knocked her to the ground as the Sacred Ash Raikou's QUICK ATTACK threw her from her legendary steed. Rearing on its hindlegs in panic, the Glastrier jerked towards the Raikou with a frantic DOUBLE KICK.[break][break]

An ochre sheen ringed the underboss's eyes as Wo-chien hissed loudly in fury at the audacity of this attack, breathing out a POISON GAS that smothered its foes in an acidic haze. It might be enough time for its Avatar to regain her footing.

[attr="class","ooc"] Josh Devlin

[attr="class","pkmn"]

"Pokemon are not a monolith, Devlin." The underboss scoffed loudly at his naivete as she staggered to her feet. She wiped her mouth, catching a smear of blood on the back of her hand. "Mine are no more like yours than you resemble me as a fellow human being."[break][break]

Claws met frozen hide as the Glastrier whinnied at Aleph's impending charge, a flurry of hooves kicking up in retaliation as the world suddenly brightened with static electricity. The Sacred Ash Raikou charged recklessly through Wo-chien's POISON GAS, fur sparking and surging with a lightning bolt of energy as it collided with Ruinous Beast and Avatar alike.[break][break]

For a brief moment, everything went blinding white.[break][break]

When the electricity cleared, the underboss was visible beneath a towering thicket of briars, crouching low as her breathing became haggard and slow. Her hair sizzled with the aftershock of the attack, clothes burnt at the edges, while Wo-chien retreated into its shell from within the thorny enclave.[break][break]

Theirs was a defense that trapped its paralyzed victims in place, leaving them open to any siege the Gym Leader might wish to make on them both.[break][break]

"Are you weak, like kyle lopez was?" she shouted suddenly, green eyes darting up towards him. "Or will you try to kill me, and bloody your hands to prove your lofty ideals?"

[attr="class","ooc"] Josh Devlin

[attr="class","pkmn"]

The Raikou's head brushed aside the brambles and briars like they were nothing, fangs finding purchase on her neck. Her breathing quickened, but even now, she sensed it: the boy doesn't have the killing instinct.[break][break]

This Pokemon would obey him, and thus refrain from doing what must be done to achieve true victory over her. So be it, then.[break][break]

"You delusional child," she spat, eyes glowing a bright and sinister ochre as the world beneath them began to shake and tremble. "You should've killed me."[break][break]

All at once, a giant stalk burst out from the earth beneath her like a thing of myth, pushing her out of harm's way as she ascended high overhead. Wo-chien slithered onto a nearby leaf, together towering high enough to get a true view of Mauville and to keep the dangerous teeth of Raikou at bay.[break][break]

But this was a beast that commanded swiftness and speed, and there was no sense in tempting fate further than she ought to.[break][break]

"There will come a day that those pretty ideals won't answer for anything," she muttered to herself, summoning her Butterfree to TELEPORT from where the stalk had lifted them mid-air. "They will let you down, as they let me down."[break][break]

Some lessons had to be learned the hard way.

[attr="class","ooc"] Josh Devlin

[attr="class","pkmn"]