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absinthe has not just seen one of the loyal three, now. she has been blessed by it, like a dove might anoint an infant.[break][break]

but absinthe is not an infant. she is a woman, and the echo of the devil at her side is not a dove. it is an omen of things to come. and absinthe is not friends with it.[break][break]

she could be. if she tries, she could be. some deep, twisted part of her wants to. for some unknowable reason, there is a kinship between her and the devil. every passing hour between the night in fallarbor and the present is another hour absinthe realizes that she is broken beyond repair. to find kinship with the progenitor of hatred is to invite ruin upon herself.[break][break]

but how could she have denied the opportunity she was given? how could she have turned her cheek from the face of god?[break][break]

surely evelyn will understand. they are both brilliant minds. surely, the only person absinthe can bother to care about will see things from absinthe's point of view.[break][break]

"it's not one of the loyal three," she answers finally as she comes close to her old friend and new flame. "it is an echo."[break][break]

indeed, the fezandipiti holds no menace in its eyes—only emptiness. that is another trait they share.[break][break]

"i have been blessed," absinthe continues, this time with a tone tinged by genuine brightness. "my research into the toxic chain will bear fruit."[break][break]

but what will she lose in the process?

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for perhaps the first time, a sense of doubt begins to eke its way into absinthe's mind.[break][break]

"i don't know," she answers finally, as she runs a thumb over her mask. "but what choice do i have?"[break][break]

that devil had seen something in her. she could have been as craven as her colleagues at her old job, she could have been a stranger on the street who crosses the road when they see a rocket grunt coming, but she is neither of those things. she had been chosen because she is broken, because she is hellfire, because she is ambitious, because she is chaotic.[break][break]

"i have to see it through," she murmurs, meeting evelyn's gaze with something like helplessness. she is an animal snared by the prospect of revenge, of success, of scientific breakthrough, no matter the cost to her spirit, her body, her mind. "but i—"[break][break]

she hesitates, and when she speaks again her voice cracks. "since i began, there was no other ending to this story. i will always die at the end of this. why can't i go out on my own accord?"[break][break]

for a moment, absinthe considers that the devil is not an echo, but a final test. the world is the judge, and her body is the stage on which the play is conducted.[break][break]

the answer?[break][break]

to throw it all away. to choose evelyn, the life she's always wanted. to choose happiness, light, life. to cast away the devil, to reject her own evil.[break][break]

but she can't. it's too late for her. it's too late now that the devil's claw has sunk its way into her heart. it will take all of her, and there will be nothing left for evelyn but a shell of a woman who once loved her and will never be the same.

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it wasn't that she hadn't considered casting aside the devil, the ambition, the hatred that fueled her. it wasn't that she hadn't thought of the quiet life that awaited her, with a job that she may not have loved but nonetheless funded her tiny haven within hoenn. it wasn't that she hadn't wondered what the inside of a church might look like at the end of an aisle, a bouquet in her hand and hope in her heart.[break][break]

the day her husband died, the world didn't end. the universe hadn't even blinked. life went on as normal, and so did she, she thought. the job continued, the bills piled up, friends and family came for condolences, the neighbor's dog continued to bark at her when she came home at night. no cosmic force reached down to shake her shoulders and ask her why she was still alive while her husband was not.[break][break]

it was as though she had been abandoned in hell and expected to live her life normally. as though her mind did not slowly decay with every hour she lived and remembered she was breathing and cole was not.[break][break]

it had not been her choice, to leave that life behind. it had been thrust upon her when cole's body was lowered into the ground, when all the evidence in the world could not convince anyone he had been murdered, when cole's family told her she was selfish for questioning the government, when the only solace she got was from a bottle of vodka a night.[break][break]

the devil had been a choice, yes. one she did not have the strength to make. the real choice had been the one taken from her, and she did not know how to live without it.[break][break]

she wants evelyn to understand that she would cast away the devil, she would cast away all of hell, if only she had a choice. but her existence feels like chains wrapped around aching limbs, and the devil is only a new set of manacles.[break][break]

"i don't want to leave you," she admits, her voice weak. "it's just that—i feel like i can't make any other choice than this one. it feels like i've gone too far."[break][break]

but this is a lie. because she feels like she can't choose otherwise, when there may be no going back, she still feels trapped, like she will never choose light even as the darkness consumes her. she doesn't know what will happen in the end. she only knows how much pain she feels at the thought of evelyn's heart aching.[break][break]

and she doesn't know how to face it.

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absinthe's heart aches, throbbing with the pain of watching evelyn's tears.[break][break]

"you don't know what you're asking of me," she says softly, reaching out a hand to brush away the moisture from her cheeks. but her words are tinged with both apology and hopelessness. even as she speaks, her mind runs through a dozen other options, and each one ends with her standing over evelyn's grave or evelyn mourning her in a graveyard.[break][break]

she can't be the light in evelyn's darkness anymore. she can't because she knows, deep in her heart, that her darkness will swallow evelyn whole.[break][break]

but she can't bear to see evelyn cry, evelyn who has been the tiniest pinprick of light in otherwise all-consuming darkness, evelyn who has given her the only moments of happiness and peace in years, evelyn who now begs absinthe to reconsider.[break][break]

maybe there's another way.[break][break]

she thinks of the echo, of the devil, of the choice she made to walk this path.[break][break]

and she thinks of evelyn, begging her to stay.[break][break]

and she thinks that maybe she can have both. a foolish thought, but it is the thought she has. the echo of the bird stares.[break][break]

"i will try," she murmurs, leaning her forehead against evelyn's. "i will try to stay afloat. but evelyn—"[break][break]

her voice cracks, and her own eyes prick with tears. "promise me, if it becomes too much, you will leave."[break][break]

she can't save herself, she knows that now. but maybe she can save evelyn, just this once. maybe she can make the choice she never had.

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for a moment, the only sound in the cavern is the waterfall, and the only motion is the rise and fall of their breaths as they try to collect themselves. absinthe is acutely aware of the way evelyn's heart beats against her own, a quiet reminder of how fragile everything is. but even as she holds evelyn, absinthe knows she has not solved anything. she feels as though she has merely patched a leak in a sinking ship.[break][break]

still, the sound of the waterfall is soothing. the world is quiet and peaceful. this feels like a brief moment of respite before the storm. but there is no storm.[break][break]

there is only a silence, and then the sound of a soft thud from deeper in the cavern.[break][break]

absinthe is on high alert instantly, every sense on high alert as she carefully, gently releases evelyn from the embrace and holds her hand close to the fezandipiti echo beside her. there is a new feeling in the air. absinthe can't describe it other than to say the world seems to be holding its breath.[break][break]

"stay behind me," she instructs, pushing evelyn back. she moves to the edge of the waterfall pool, her eyes scanning the darkness beyond.[break][break]

her finger hovers over the bird's head. her hand tightens into a fist.[break][break]

her eyes adjust to the darkness. she sees the mare.[break][break]

and then she sees something else.[break][break]

sweat beads down her face and she nearly stops breathing. she had thought she could have both. she had thought she could make everything okay. but she had forgotten one important thing:[break][break]

devils are fickle creatures.[break][break]

"i hope you meant what you said," she whispers to evelyn. "because i think we're going to need it."

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time seems to move in slow motion as the sludge wave builds around munkidori. it roils with darkness and malice, a storm created by a friend of the devil absinthe thought she could contain.[break][break]

and she couldn't have.[break][break]

the devil is not her ally. the devil is not her friend. the devil is not a power she could wield.[break][break]

the devil is the end of everything good in her life.[break][break]

but right now she has a more pressing threat to worry about.[break][break]

"soman!" the command comes out like a shot as she throws the premier ball, releasing the toxapex within. the ball splits open and soman spreads her tentacles wide, bracing herself against the ground as she forms a protective shell around herself, absinthe, the devil, dragonite, and evelyn. the baneful bunker moves at an almost leisurely pace, as if time is being bent around it, giving them just enough warning to prepare for what's to come.[break][break]

the sludge wave hits them like a train, the force of it rocking soman back on her heels but not breaking her defenses. the world turns a deep, sickly black, tendrils of toxic sludge clawing at the shield like hands trying to tear their way inside. for a moment it is impossible to see anything else. it feels as though they're trapped in the eye of a hurricane, a maelstrom of poison that threatens to consume them whole.[break][break]

absinthe grits her teeth, digging her nails into evelyn's hand. she can hear munkidori laughing in the back of her mind. she can feel the devil's claws in her chest. this is the consequence of choosing light. this is the consequence of trying to have a future.[break][break]

absinthe wanted evelyn to save her from herself.[break][break]

but now she needs to save evelyn from herself.[break][break]

somehow.[break][break]

the sludge wave dissipates. in the absence of terror, absinthe turns to her side, inspecting the woman there. "evelyn," she breathes, soft like a sword in a velvet sheath. "are you alright?"

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"of course i trust you," the words are so quiet they are almost consumed by the chaos around them, but absinthe doesn't need to hear them to know they are true. the trust between evelyn and absinthe is like a metal alloy, born from the heat of their struggles and beat into shape by the force of the trials they’ve overcome together. it’s unbreakable now.[break][break]

and then evelyn is moving, and absinthe is moving too, because this is how it has always been. one of them runs ahead while the other watches her back. she recalls soman and sends out trypsin, her seviper, who moves with a speed and grace born from generations of hunting. absinthe commands her to strike, and she does, the night slash finding purchase in munkidori’s flesh and drawing ichor.[break][break]

but munkidori is not so easily beaten. he retaliates with a psychic, manipulating the environment around them with the sheer power of his mind. rocks begin to rise from the ground, trembling in the air like drops of water on a glass. absinthe feels the weight of them pressing down on her, threatening to crush them all under their collective might.[break][break]

trypsin is unable to dodge, and a boulder strikes her before she can slither away. the seviper goes limp, but absinthe doesn't have time to worry about her. another boulder is hurtling toward evelyn, and absinthe is moving on pure instinct, desperate.[break][break]

and then the devil is moving. it is the last resort, a prayer whispered into the darkness of a dying world. absinthe feels the heat of its moonblast before she sees it, a lance of light and flame that shoots through the air with deadly precision. it finds munkidori and catches him square in the chest, sending him hurtling backward until he slams into the cavern wall, cracking it. rocks rain down around him, but the moonblast has done its job; the psychic hold he had on the boulders is gone, and they tumble to the ground like fruit from a tree.[break][break]

absinthe doesn’t hesitate. she recalls trypsin, then her eyes find evelyn. "evelyn!" she shouts, desperate to gain as much ground while the monkey is still recovering. "did you get the damn horse?!"

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