Hana
She/Her
27
July 7
Pacifidlog Town
Any/All
Mercenary
Grunt
i used to dream in the dark of palisades park.
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Aoki Hana
BATTLE OF SOOTOPOLIS: MAIN EVENT
POSTED ON Aug 24, 2024 0:18:28 GMT
Swords arc out in front of her, leaving her grasp and slicing through the winds of their own volition.
One finds its way to the breloom in her way. The other, the pokemon's master. Montgomery James, deputy of Dewford. Hana grins as he falters, and even wider when his pokemon is felled by her blade.
Amid the storm, his words come like a whisper. Nearly drowned out by the wind and rain, she latches onto every word eagerly, oblivious to the wreckage of the city around them. Her eyes focus only on his lips, the bitter sentiment that lingers there.
"Hah! Love it when a man gets rough!"
She roars back in defiance.
The man reminds her of the sheriff. Fitting, for Navidson's deputy. The man's just as willful as he is. Just as stupid. But is he blind enough to sense like Navy is, to lose himself in the midst of battle and overpower her? She meets his eyes, searching for the steel that would cut clean through her--
A rising cough tears her mind away, suddenly made aware of an irritating numbness in her chest. Familiar, cloying, bitter as it rises up her throat and makes it hard to swallow. Likely the breloom's lingering powder. Her breath shudders, and she suddenly feels something hot and sticky rolling down her arm. She's pulled away from the heat of battle just enough to recognize the chain embedded in her shoulder, though she does not feel it.
The paralyzing powder is merciful, she thinks.
She reaches out with her good hand to catch her sword just in time for the man to pull the trigger again. Her doublade knocks the second chain aside, and she laughs. She readies herself to respond before he can reload again, but a light catches her eyes.
She looks up to the clouds, where the Origin Pulse breaks through to bright blue skies above. A break in the storm. Nature in conflict with itself. The power of gods unleashed against one another for the fate of this wretched city, a ruined city hardly worth all the bloodshed.
League, Rocket, they are just playthings, she thinks suddenly. Neglected toys, that the gods will deign to capsize and torment when they get bored. Dozens, perhaps hundreds have been washed out to sea by now. Cillian Quinn will never save them all. Neither will Navy.
Her shadow is cast across the deck like a long spear behind her, across the deck of a boat that should, by all rights, have been smashed across a jutting rock in the middle of this storm and sunk along with the rest. It will in time, given the chance. But not yet. Both of them are simply too small, too unimportant, for the gods to pay them any mind. They quibble amongst themselves, giving her this moment of self-indulgence.
She looks back down to the man, exchanging with him an expression of feigned pity. Then she sinks into the deck, into the shadow cast by Rayquaza's growing light.
A sword appears behind the deputy moments later, pressed to his neck. The tossing and turning of the deck threatens to slit his throat, but she holds her blade steady, does not cut deep, but just enough that he can feel a drop of blood trickle downward even amidst the rain. A hand grasps firmly on his shoulder, and she presses his wounded leg into the deck to keep him there.
Then Hana whispers in his ear, slow and deliberate so that even amid the storm he can hang on to every last word.
"Threats comes easy, deputy. Following through on those, less so. But, no. I don't think you'll kill me. Not today. And, well. As for the other part..."
She gazes out, at shattered white walls, a near-sunken cityscape, crowds amid the rising waters. Even as they watch, heads are washed under the waves and don't resurface. Others, still not yet washed out to sea, are drowned in the bombs of an Origin Pulse. All of that is rendered a backdrop to the chaos of battle, set aside as an inevitability as factions squabble over the city, or whatever is left of it.
Most pay it no heed at all.
"How many civilians do you think you could've saved if you hadn't been distracted here by our little duel? One? Two? Ten?"
She laughs, her voice ringing cold and cruel in his ear.
"Do you think, just cause you didn't pull the trigger yourself, their blood is any less on your hands? Kyogre, it's rabid. Out of control. It ain't on your side, just like it ain't on ours. But your superiors, they sure knew it was headed this way. Sure as hell didn't come with search and rescue in mind, either. Went in guns blazing, right behind it. All it was was pretext: invade, and conquer."
She pauses, indulgent, savoring the irony. Just the way he talks and carries himself, she knows he thinks he's made the right choice. He's doing the right thing here, coming to this battlefield under this banner. But that look in his eye, it ain't the battle-forged steel of the sheriff. It wavers, if only just. He's still trying to prove to himself that this was the right decision.
She seizes on that.
"Maybe you've got a thing against killing civilians, but what about the League, hm? D'you think they care?"
MYBQVt62Montgomery James cc: Cillian Quinn Navy tl;dr D2. Doublade cuts down breloom, wounds Montgomery. Hana is wounded in turn. She knocks his second anchor shot aside, and shadow sneaks, presses his wounded leg to the deck and gives a lil villain monologue. Cleared w/ Red!
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