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POSTED ON Sept 14, 2024 23:00:48 GMT

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[player]https://file.garden/ZpgjcajufVyGrPnv/ADRIAN%20MALCOLM/MP3/FERAL%20%20Dark%20Ambient%20Music%20for%20the%20damned%20%20Deep%20Atmospheric%20Ambient%20Mix.mp3[/player]^{INKET - FERAL, dark ambient music}[break]
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Adrian wasn't fighting for anything, least of all the glory of Team Rocket. It was a natural byproduct of opposing the League that had affronted him, and ultimately forced him to seek asylum from a government that did not respect his individual liberties. He wasn't a fanatic or some villain.[break][break]

At the time, it just made sense. Now?[break][break]

That was something for him to decide.[break][break]

"Hm?" Adrian could see what they'd reached for, and recoiled slightly at the realization. The flame was unnatural, and their glow was reminiscent of the apparitions of this damned plane—and particularly of the bridge from before...[break][break]

"...Can we use this to pass the bridge, maybe?" Adrian seemed to think so.[break][break]

Wrenching the torch from its sconce, Adrian's hand felt firm against the beacon, even as his body slumped forward, collapsing. Oh shit.[break][break]

Two wisps smoldered faintly over the fainted vessel, one more noticeably dim. Adrian...[break][break]

Mortal hands could not carry the flame, but it illuminated the path. What to do, then...?[break][break]

Adrian remained cognizant and sapient, though he had no mouth through which to speak.

²⁷ ^{briefly detach from your body or bodies in order to accomplish a task using your spirits.}

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

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AFTER HELL

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POSTED ON Sept 15, 2024 7:23:43 GMT

The admin's soul flickered between red and magenta, before sinking back into its body. Carved limbs twitched as the spark life life was returned to its mechanical vessel. For a single moment, the admin's body pulsed with red energy as Dynergy thrummed through it.

⠗⠕⠥⠎⠑ ⠽⠕⠥⠗⠎⠑⠇⠋

⠇⠑⠎⠞ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠉⠗⠥⠍⠃⠇⠑ ⠍⠽ ⠍⠁⠉⠓⠊⠝⠑

Creaking joints returned to life as Howard's body revived itself.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck... What the hell was that? Awful feeling, like I died." The admin cocked his head. "Twice."

It took him a moment to adjust. His shadow flickered under him, as if clawing to reach the body it had once lost. Even if Howard Slayte's original form was gone, the shadow remembered its memory and sensation. If it could take it back, then maybe he could return to his original form.

"Yo, Adrian. Guide the way with the light and I'll follow you." Howard peered at the Adrian wisp, as if expecting it to talk back with vocal cords made from smoke and words cast from fire. When it didn't, he huffed and peered at the torch. "Can you hear me?"

Adrian Malcolm

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POSTED ON Sept 16, 2024 8:21:08 GMT

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He felt like he was spread thin—he could understand his senses—but the feedback couldn't be used in a meaningful way. He absorbed the world around him, unable to interface with it.[break][break]

It was like he was dead. But his body was alive, and Howard's voice called him.[break][break]

The wisps shuddered, a low pulsing glow emanating in the dust and the dim as Adrian began to flit slowly towards the tower's uppermost reaches. Where he went, the broken planks regrew, ephemeral but very much solid, though they remained translucent to the naked eye. They would be better served showing a bit of trepidation, but Howard had to keep pace.[break][break]

Why would anyone go through the trouble of this trick? As they cross the threshold, Adrian can see only a brazier smoldering with a dying EMERALD emanation, and an uninhabited room. Tatters of textiles, what might have once been furnishings.[break][break]

To ADRIAN, the fire was another wisp. He doesn't bother reading into it, beyond that. The answer seems simple, to him. He drifts closer...[break][break]

To HOWARD, the cinders had nearly gone out. As before with the stairs, the glow of the torch reveals what once was: An apparition in strange textiles gestures to the brazier, to rekindle it...[break][break]

THE ANSWER WAS IN FRONT OF THEM.

²⁷ ^{briefly detach from your body or bodies in order to accomplish a task using your spirits.}

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

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POSTED ON Sept 17, 2024 6:33:26 GMT

There was no need to justify logic in the land of the dead. It simply did not exist. If Howard were to reason a guess, he would assume that to move forward, a price was required. In order to impact the world of the living, one had to spend time shaping reality with their own two hands.

In the land of the dead, why not turn one's soul into fuel to fulfill the same things?

"This is so fucking weird. I've never seen anything like this in any tomb I've explored." Adrian is blessed with the knowledge that his superior was genuinely surprised and wary. Even when he looked at Adrian's flickering remnant, he looked uneasy. "I don't even know if that's you in there, or some sort of trick."

His eye flicked to the unconscious body below. What if Adrian Malcolm was dead? It was more likely than Howard was willing to admit.

The brazier stood before them. Decaying cloth hid the truth, and the spirits of the dead revealed it through a torch of decay. Howard's eye flicked from Adrian's spirit to the brazier.

This felt wrong.

"Adrian Malcolm, set your soul ablaze. Find purpose in incineration, and find the resolve to keep living."

Adrian Malcolm

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POSTED ON Sept 17, 2024 7:35:24 GMT

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The wisps moved whimsically at the suggestion it wasn't him. He couldn't blame Howard for being so cautious, however. It was admittedly very reckless, and even he wasn't sure of the state of his body—if it had survived.[break][break]

But they had to move forward to get anywhere. The Border had a way of trapping you in its ANOMALY, once you entered, but it was fair enough to leave ways it—but it was the nature of guarding something, to leave all the exits locked.[break][break]

'Geez man, when you say it like that...' Howard was another one of those waxing poetics. He could appreciate the gesture however, but it made it a little more awkward as he drifted towards the flame, and the smoldering wisp within.[break][break]

As he passed through, to the pit of cinders, the other wisp moved suddenly. It brushed past him—and in that moment he saw something—though it was too brief. It felt like that feeling before you slip from a dream, and into a nightmare.[break][break]

The wisps light the fire and the brazier burns brightly, restoring the pass. Dense fog rolls away, making the void below known. And moreover, a wisp hurriedly rushes past Howard, and towards Adrian's body. It was indistinguishable from his.[break][break]

Adrian felt despair—and then roiled with rage.[break][break]

Į̴̘̟̜̹̥͒͆̑T̸̛͖͒͊̿͂̎͘͝ ̵̼̘̋͋͆͂̋̈́̀̚͝Ẃ̴͔̓̐͋̿̈A̵̮̻̙̮̝̱͌̂̈́́͂̋̚͝Ŝ̸̨̖̺̖̼̹͛̇͂̀͂̚̕ ̶̢̨͕͚͛͝ͅA̴͙͕̰̦͕̞̐̉̇̏͒̽͌͆͝ ̷͇̆T̸͖̱̼͎͍̓̀̑̂̈́̂͘͜͜R̷̨̨̢̳̫̺͎̱͓͑̒̀̒I̶̧̨̪̤̥̗̭̅̿͌̈́͂͐̚͘C̷̣̼̭͓̣̹̝͕̪̀͊̄̓͘͝͝͝͝K̴̦̻͛̆̈́͗̅͝!̶̰̱̰́̊̎̔̇

[break]

Within the fire his spirit seethed, and the flames licked angrily at the air, scorching at the textiles. He could not see in the blinding light of the fire, and when he tried to shift his gaze, he was met with a swallowing void... 'I... I can't see.'[break][break]

Even so, the wisp manages to free itself from the fire, though this happens only after Howard assuredly turned his attention back to Adrian, where it lie face down in the dark below...[break][break]

Adrian stood up, but it wasn't him.

¹⁰ ^{become possessed by a spirit attempting to return to life.}

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

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POSTED ON Sept 17, 2024 19:11:19 GMT

Adrian Malcolm likes this

It was a trick. They had been deceived.

Howard could not immediately tell that something was wrong. His spirit was not attuned to this world of death like Adrian's was. Even if it had only been for a spell, the Executioner's bond had left a mark on his soul. Adrian Malcolm was connected to this land of death, regardless of his desires.

Even if he didn't know what those were.

"Adrian?" Howard reached towards the brazier, before burning his hand against spectral flames. Quickly, he turned around to go check on Adrian's body, which was now rising like a puppet on cut strings. Howard paled, and immediately took a step back. "Shit."

He reached for his belt to throw out a Pokeball.

"REGIROCK!" The stone titan emerged behind Adrian, a massive fist being leveraged in an attempt to incapacitate the possessed trainer. "Knock him out!"

Shit, how did you exorcise a spirit?

Adrian Malcolm

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POSTED ON Sept 19, 2024 0:47:28 GMT

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Adrian's body rose, and while the spirit acclimated, it was indeed vulnerable—but that was Adrian's body all the same. Though Howard's gesture was perhaps justified, Adrian would not abide it—though he felt mostly powerless.[break][break]

He flung himself towards Regirock, strange ephemeral wisp that he was, and he felt a twinge as he passed through it. Something familiar. His arm felt a familiar ache, and he tries to recall a memory through the haze... But there is nothing.[break][break]

Emerging from Regirock, he sees that it has been momentarily stymied by his intervention. By now the spirit possessing his body had made it outside, but it would go no further once there.[break][break]

After catching up, Howard would find Adrian standing still, as if petrified. He casts a long shadow behind him, and from it a Marshadow spawns, the GLOOMDWELLER from earlier...[break][break]

...It stitches his shadow in place, anchoring him there, making this soul's escape from purgatory impossible.

[break]

When it finally remembers how it feels to have a mouth, it groans in a strange language, bargaining for its life in raspy, throaty yelps.[break][break]

As Adrian's wisp flutters down towards them at the base of the tower, its pleading becomes more desperate, but the outcome is unchanged.[break][break]

Marshadow expels the soul, and Adrian is able to return—in the aftermath, the other shade can be seen dissipating into shadow—its begging muted as it fades away. Adrian, gasping, inhales sharply.[break][break]

He feels the sweat and dread—his body floods with adrenaline—and his heart hammers away, a lingering aftereffect of the shade's terror.[break][break]

"Uuuuuwaaaah—...!" He feels exhausted, and catches his second wind while Marshadow, Howard and Regirock look over him—perhaps in judgment. F#ck man, that was awful...[break][break]

"...Let's agree to never do that again."[break][break]

He throws back an accusing look at Howard—who might've had him killed moments ago—not quite ready to have that conversation yet.[break][break]

...This damned bridge had better be worth all of the trouble...[break][break]

It was too soon to CELEBRATE their progress.[break][break]

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

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POSTED ON Sept 19, 2024 6:19:45 GMT

There were once three people who held Regirock in their palms. angelo vestri had departed Hoenn, leaving the soul behind. Katherine Fairburne had held Regirock's body, and had used it to crush her foes. Adrian had possessed something that had never held its own form.

The mind had shattered, and it had imprinted itself onto him.

Regirock remembered the sensation of thought, and for that reason, it did not crush Adrian Malcolm into paste. He was familiar in a way most weren't. He was not a true sibling, nor did Adrian's blood flow through Regirock's nonexistent veins like Howard's did, but that did not change on simple fact:

Adrian Malcolm was its sibling.

Thus, he lived.

"What the... a Marshadow? What's it doing here?" Howard's eye narrowed at it, before cocking his head. Adrian had one of these. It must've recognized that this person wasn't the trainer it had sworn itself to. Thus, it did what its kind were like to do and expelled the darkness from its trainer's body. "Adrian?"

Howard poked him. He breathed. Howard screamed and leapt back, jumping into Regirock as he did so.

"What the fuck was that? You're not like... scary or fucked up, right?"

Adrian Malcolm

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POSTED ON Sept 19, 2024 23:44:41 GMT

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"God, I hope not," he chokes out into a balled hand, coughing up the dust. Whatever it was, it was over now, and he was thankful for that much.[break][break]

He was blessed to have Marshadow at his side. Adrian glances towards it, but it remains stoic, its RUBY eyes sinking back into umbralis. 'TCH, ALRIGHT...'[break][break]

The experience leaves him rattled. It was not a guard, per se, but an opportunistic spirit that had nearly ended their quest. Its existence breathed life into the fact that they, too, might be trapped here in perpetuity should they make a single misstep. Disheartening was the short of it.[break][break]

"So... I guess we cross the bridge now?"[break][break]

A phantasmal lattice work, spanning the schism that led to nowhere, with a destination that was... unknowable.

[break]

One of them would have to risk the first step.[break][break]

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

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POSTED ON Sept 22, 2024 6:53:31 GMT

If he could risk Adrian's soul by pushing it into a weird soul incinerator, then Howard could risk his own occasionally. Adrian could catch him if he fell. Howard gaze the man a side-glance. Hopefully, at least. It took a moment, but Howard realized that he actually trusted Adrian Malcolm.

Curious. Hopefully it stayed that way and Adrian didn't garner any world-ending ambitions like half of the people in Team Rocket, these days. Power had a tendency to corrupt, and most of Team Rocket's upper command consisted of avatars or those in control of deities. Howard, meanwhile, felt like the only normal one.

He wondered how often the others thought that, too.

"Yeah yeah, I'll go." Howard rolled his eye and took a step onto the bridge. "I owe you that much."

He made a point to refrain from letting Regirock cross immediatley. Regardless of the spooky scenarios going on, Regirock weighed a ton, or roughly ten to twenty Adrian Malcolms. Best to let it cross last.

"This is nerve-wracking..." He muttered as he shimmied across.

Adrian Malcolm

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POSTED ON Sept 22, 2024 7:16:14 GMT

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"I didn't mean—" Howard had already made up his mind, which was well enough. Adrian would follow six paces behind, to allow the bridge to disperse their weight. He rather wished Howard would withdraw his Regirock, however.[break][break]

But it was best to keep their guard up, and so reluctantly he abided it, though he would curse them both if the bridge gave in beneath the burden of a giant's cumbersome weight...[break][break]

"You've got that right." Never again, he thought to himself. As if he could help it.[break][break]

Below them was a ravine roiling with despondent souls. He can only imagine how many have fallen here, just shy of absolution. He wondered what they had been pursuing, when they'd crossed this threshold... Was it anything like their journey now? Surely they must've had more ambition...[break][break]

Adrian and Howard strode with a vague sense of purpose, and perhaps that is why they had been able to reach it. Devoid of that corrupting desire, they had chanced upon something truly great—purely by happenstance, and undeniably the intervention of the higher mysteries...[break][break]

It would have felt like forever on that bridge, but eventually an end was in sight. Mercurial pools oozing with foreboding, a jutting peak that outstripped any other landmark—this place was monumental, even for the Border. But its significance was lost on Adrian. Whether Howard knew its purpose, or kept an inkling to himself, mattered little. ...It was deathly quiet here.[break][break]

"...Is this it?" Adrian sounded unimpressed. So far as he could tell, there was no other obvious exit, no other path forward. The mountain's peak stood before them, insurmountable. Too steep for them to climb—the fall would break them.[break][break]

It was an end to all paths. Before Adrian can express further disappointment, he catches sight of a wisp—and the ephemeral form it resembles—voicing an audible gasp—...Derek Hoffman?[break][break]

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

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POSTED ON Sept 22, 2024 7:35:08 GMT

Regirock is, eventually, returned to its Pokeball. In a world that is evidently decaying, Regirock's inability to move quickly or with subtlety is a hassle. It had been called to incapacitate Adrian, and it would later be called to wage war with Yveltal. For now, it had no purpose.

Thus, it returned to its Pokeball in order to rest. Unbeknownst to Howard, Regirock had once belonged to another. Had she kept it in a Pokeball? Had it even needed to be held in one, or had it simply existed to heed its trainer's call? No matter. Howard was not that person.

His Regirock was more complete.

"I think so? It's certainly... transient enough. It feels like it was carved from steel and silver. Hoenn's best silversmiths could never recreate this. And what're these pools?" He wasn't stupid enough to touch one, but he still glanced at them. Their silvery sheen reminded the admin of Registeel's outer shell. He quickly turned to the source of Adrian's shock. "What the...?"

He squinted, his eye attempting to process this strange spiritual wisp. He didn't recognize the man's voice, for he had never met Derek Hoffman in the flesh. Yet as peered at the spectral orb, he saw the flash of a face that seemed vaguely familiar.

"Adrian." Howard nudged him slightly. "You don't think... this is the guy that the League is holding all those memorials for? The one they turned into a martyr?"

Adrian Malcolm

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POSTED ON Sept 22, 2024 7:53:02 GMT

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"I know it is." Adrian's voice is haunted by the revelation, by the revenant before them. Though DEREK HOFFMAN does not seem to pay them any mind, he is there—if Adrian but walked over, he could reach out—speak to him.[break][break]

He's not sure if he should, though. Apprehension is the garrote that kills opportunity.[break][break]

"Why... Why is he here?" It was wrong.[break][break]

There's a tinge of distress, but the question is rhetorical—mostly. Adrian and Howard, keenly aware of this realm's purpose, realize Derek must be serving some sort of perdition—or struggling to accept his end, and move on peacefully. One can only pity him, as they might themselves.[break][break]

Adrian looked over to Howard, his look sympathetic—but he wears a knowing frown...[break][break]

This was not the mission they'd embarked upon.[break][break]

This was not for the glory of Team Rocket.[break][break]

An observer of eons cannot feel the warmth of another.

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AFTER HELL

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Magnetic

Admin Fox

He/Him

May 9th

Rustboro City

Bisexual

Archaeologist

Rocket Admin

5'9 (with hat) height

The future will tempt you, the present will indulge you, but the past will shackle you.

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POSTED ON Sept 22, 2024 23:03:21 GMT

Derek's soul flickered in the wind.

"Because this is the end." Hoenn was a nexus of anomalies. The dead could be roused, and the dead could be allowed to rest. Yet in this world, it was up to the living to dictate the fate of the dead. It wasn't fair. It wasn't just. Yet Derek Hoffman's death hadn't been just, had it? "The end and the beginning."

It was a paradox, but paradoxes were common now, weren't they? He raised an eyebrow at Adrian, their gaze meeting over the spiritual wisp.

"He's here because he died, but..." Howard's voice was a whisper. He was apathetic to treason. His colleagues danced around the war, avoiding responsibility for their actions. How had Derek died? Why did the League insist upon turning him into a martyr? Howard hadn't even seen him at Petalburg.

What dubious circumstances.

"...what if he wasn't?"

Adrian Malcolm

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Fonz

Masculine

October 19

Sootopolis City

Bisexual

N/A

6'1" height

I picked the stitches, now I can't stop bleeding

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POSTED ON Sept 23, 2024 8:36:45 GMT

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"Wasn't... what?" Adrian tried to understand Howard's words, but they seemed incomplete. Like his spoken words stretched across a greater span of thoughts—interjecting with his own mutterings... It only made sense to Howard.[break][break]

It ran his patience short.[break][break]

"Have we just about finished up here?"[break][break]

Adrian is determined to confront Derek's apparition. There was a time such a thing might've been expected of him—to shepherd those along the way as had stumbled off the intended path—but now he wished to do it merely as a gesture. To make up for his failings in life.[break][break]

Derek deserved better than to be lost here.[break][break]

"I'd like to approach—alone, for now," he insisted. "He was... a kindred spirit."[break][break]