[attr="class","yuinatag"]Absinthe Blackwood

[attr="class","yuinamain"]

The dim street lights of the evening did little to help Yuina go over her notes from the day as she walked through the city streets, buried in her work just as always. Always translations to make, maps to render, pieces to verify, and never mind that she was trying to organize for her section to be cleaned. Her work was never done... but at least it kept her otherwise addled mind busy.[break][break]
Flipping another page in her planner, Yuina was otherwise unassuming in moving through the city streets, casual professional attire, studious glasses sliding down her nose, a sunflower yellow ribbon tied in her hair. Imposition might not be her strongest suit, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't take action on something if action was necessary... Like shouts and rumbles and curses coming from a street just down the way.[break][break]
The rough and tumble drunkards were surely going at it, ready to beat each other until they both couldn't see straight enough to land a punch. The display was deplorable anyway, and if left unchecked, there was no telling what would happen. There was a pop and flash of a Pokeball in the near distance, but the dark fur of the encroaching Pokémon went unnoticed until it was far too late.[break][break]
Both men were drawn up by their shoulders, ripped apart from each other as a magenta chain snaked around either arm. Between them, a Houndoom snarled, hackles raised, and entirely in control of the chains that linked to its ankles, the same ones that now held the men at bay. The canine barked and snapped at any attempted drunken swing that might have come its way as a sickly sweet ichor dripped from her open maw...[break][break]
"Don't let her bite you, she's venomous. It might be in your best interest to stop while you're ahead," a voice came through the evening darkness, where a young woman emerged, one who could call off the poison hound.

[attr="class","yuinapoke"]

[attr="class","yuinatag"]Absinthe Blackwood

[attr="class","yuinamain"]

Poised and at the ready, jowls arched, tail whipping fervently behind her, and the remaining chains linked at her ankles twitching under the canine's control, the Houndoom held firm. One more snap of her maw for good measure, a snarl rumbling from her throat, and the two men were ready to take a new lease on life.[break][break]
Off to the side, Yuina looked out from behind her glasses, watching carefully. She hadn't known what was going on in the first place until the woman emerged, baseball bat in hand, it seemed that the men were unruly patrons and needed to be set straight. She wasn't going to overstep then, any more than she already had, giving the woman the final opportunity to get her word in. A promise of never returning, made clear by both men.[break][break]
The woman regarded Yuina then after it was made clear she would never see the drunkards again, they were free to go.[break][break]
"Keep yourselves in check. I spend a lot of time in the city, and a canine never forgets a scent," Yuina offered, her own parting words. She didn't much care for the senselessness and recklessness of squabbling like this, there were more important things than being at each others throats over something that was likely so trivial, even they even remembered what it was at all.[break][break]
"Ruza," she spoke then, regarding the Houndoom, The chains that wrapped around each shoulder relinquished their holds, dropping the men to their feet, but she was hard pressed to let her guard down. The canine licked at her chops, more ichor laced along her fangs, ready, just in case.

[attr="class","yuinapoke"]

[attr="class","yuinatag"]Absinthe Blackwood

[attr="class","yuinamain"]

Just like that, the two men were set straight at the behest of the canine that dared them to make another wrong move. Unceremoniously dropped to the ground, crawling away from her, the Houndoom barked with a toothy snarl for good measure, sending them on their way. The chains that linked at her ankles relinquished their length, settling again on the ground. But where she would have turned to move back towards whom could be assumed to be her trainer, her sharp eyes were fixated on that of the other woman that moved towards her.[break][break]
Hackles raised again, Ruza drew a step back, jowls twitching with all of the composure of a creature that couldn't be predicted. But Yuina drew nearer, eyeing the situation carefully..[break][break]
"Ruza, here," she offered, giving the canine the space to remove herself, and the Houndoom huffed a plume of smog from her maw before moving towards Yuina, eyes never leaving that of the other woman.[break][break]
"Debilitating and damaging... In long term exposure or heavy doses, fatal," Yuina remarked first as the woman regarded her. She knew well what kind of toxin the chain produced... She could swear she still saw tinges of magenta in her veins from time to time... And she didn't want to know if the chains could still produce the same controlling effects... The amplification of an inner most desire... Truly she had never hated a Pokemon so much.[break][break]
"Hopefully that saved you more trouble than it was worth."

[attr="class","yuinapoke"]

[attr="class","yuinatag"]Absinthe Blackwood

[attr="class","yuinamain"]

Standing up a little straighter, straightening the blouse that was tucked into her skirt, Yuina watched first as Ruza came back towards her as any good canine would its person, trailing behind her for a moment before turning and sitting at her side. While it was not a terribly long partnership by any means, it was well earned and well understood.[break][break]
"At least we saved you that much, though I can't speak for anyone else that might still visit tonight," Yuina returned, thankful at least that she had the woman's blessing to have intruded on the situation. If it had been some kind of personal matter or some such, she was sure that her interference might have been regarded differently. Fortunate that it all worked out the way that it did.[break][break]
Behind her glasses, Yuina glanced to Ruza beside her, the Houndoom's jowls still twitched on occasion, and she could swear she saw a particular twinge at the word anomalous. She herself stifled a sharpened gaze of her eyes... she herself didn't take too kindly to the word either. But it was the one word that she and Ruza, like many of her Pokémon, had in common.[break][break]
"Not by choice," Yuina remarked first, laying a hand across Ruza's head.[break]
"The chains around her ankles, it's called the 'toxic chain'. It's an affliction from something that was called The Never Rot," she spoke, and she still hoped every day that utilizing the past tense was actually correct... She never wanted to see that thing again if she could help it.

[attr="class","yuinapoke"]

[attr="class","yuinatag"]Absinthe Blackwood

[attr="class","yuinamain"]

Keeping Ruza close, Yuina glanced again at the woman across from her in the darkness. There were only faint street lights, she couldn't quite see the woman or any discerning features in the shroud of the buildings surrounding them, but she didn't need to... Yuina could feel the woman's eyes on her after she mulled over the phrase 'toxic chain'.[break][break]
She didn't parse words, she was very clear in what she wanted, to study Ruza, as a chemist... who had already shown great interest in the toxicity she possessed. Yuina bristled, the notion was sour in her mouth as she stroked Ruza's dark fur. The Houndoom didn't ask to be made into what she is now... and now that she was here in this way, without understand why things happened the way that they did... Yuina wanted to protect her, as she did the various anomalous Pokémon that she had started to find. She understood them, a mirror to her own circumstances.[break][break]
She hated the thought of being made into a science experiment, a study... when she couldn't understand herself.[break][break]
"I'm an ecologist, so you must understand that I'm her advocate, not her trainer," Yuina returned, one scientist to another.[break]
"I've been studying her, and others like her, that are under my care. You can appreciate why I would want to know what you would want to study from her?"

[attr="class","yuinapoke"]

[attr="class","yuinatag"]Absinthe Blackwood

[attr="class","yuinamain"]

The woman was forward, calculating, she wasn't straying away from what it truly was she wanted out of studying not Ruza, but the poison that ailed her. Where Yuina could appreciate honesty, she wasn't sure that she much liked the idea of the venom of the toxic chain being studied for recreation, for control...[break][break]
"The illusion that power can be weilded over what we don't understand is a sizeable downfall," Yuina countered, she'd seen it time and time again in specifically studying the unknown, the anomalous... However, she wasn't without her own contemplations as she stroked the short fur of Ruza's head beside her.[break][break]
"Working to understand the toxic chain... Do you think there could be a path to learning how to cure it or counter it? Maybe even prevent it," she asked after a moment. She wished every day that she would never have to see that wretched thing again, but Yuina was more certain that the odds of misfortune were greater than that of granting her wish. If the never rot ever returned... Who knew if there would be promise of being able to break their bonds again...

[attr="class","yuinapoke"]

[attr="class","yuinatag"]Absinthe Blackwood

[attr="class","yuinamain"]

With studies, with science, with work put in, Yuina knew there could be many different avenues to what research could hold. Now that she had said it aloud, she wondered truly if there could be a way to combat the toxic chain and the Never Rot should the abomination ever come around again, and she didn't have the resources or the knowledge alone to accomplish such a thing.[break]
But the other implications of what the study could lead to were not lost on her either... Knowing first hand what the toxic chain had done to her and to so many others... She couldn't possibly allow that kind of power to be understood, discovered, or otherwise if she could help it...[break][break]
"I am dedicated to making sure The Never Rot doesn't have the capability to inflict what it did upon the region again," Yuina returned then.[break]
"It's late, and you still have patrons, perhaps we can formalize things when we're both available," she offered, an agreement, of sorts, that they might work on studying the toxic chain phenomena together.

[attr="class","yuinapoke"]