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POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 10:48:55 GMT

persephone amavi and NIKOLAI PETROV like this

fernando awaits.

the top of silph tower has been fully converted to his office. mission control, if you will. it's a discernible place that both thalia black and persephone amavi will recognize from their debrief so many weeks ago. the layout has changed since the rocket invasion but fernando does well to take care of things. this is his domain and no one dares trespass on the one place he controls by will. the various pokemon of his grand army call this place home and lie in wait, discrete, prepared.

"you have guest."

fernando eyes his display.

"let them in."

he's expecting them. there's no doubt in his mind that NIKOLAI PETROV has fled for help. however, his predicament works against him. as a rocket, one of a prestigious title and disastrous past, he cannot afford the protection of the league. only stragglers, those who dare to defy the order of the organization dare to shield such a villain from his just desserts. fernando knows them well and it pains him all the same.

the swivel of his chair turns him to the skyline. the setting sun provides him the sight of slateport's ocean side. it's beautiful. reminds him of a simpler time, one he could share between those he loved and those that loved him equally so. it's about time to give it up, and it pains him to realize it. his ambition was already kept in check by the tan lines of his cherished one. without her -whether the elder or the younger- there's no one to tame his predestination. fernando continues on the path.

hoenn will know his wrath.

fernando turns again, this time facing the elevator that will eventually open. he's expectant and readied. last night was spent analyzing both their psychological profiles. he has a grasp at what angles to work but nothing is for certain. his own psychological profile is printed and filed neatly in a folder on his overly spacious desk. they're one of many documents he has prepared for todays' eventual confrontation. time and persistence pay off well. fernando's done his research. his displays are ready. all he needs to do is deliver one hell of a presentation. for that, he'll rely on what lies in his cupboard. a gift from dahlia goode herself. it's about time he put it to good use.

persephone amavi thalia black

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perse

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twenty-four

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TAG WITH @perse

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 14:21:24 GMT

her hands aren't shaking any more.

the tremor died down the after a short time after she left the hospital because reigning her feelings onto a tight leash is perhaps one of the few personality characteristics she shared with her mother.

when the lift doors open, her movement is deliberate and slow as if facing a wild animal. is that not what it was? she saw the damage he had caused, and that isn't the work of the boy she knew once; closer than a brother.

persephone stood straight, blank mask for an expression. he knew her weaknesses as well as she did his.

she bit back fuck you, and instead said "explain."

FERNANDO SILPH
thalia black
NIKOLAI PETROV (i guess...?)

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POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 14:33:15 GMT

the elevator dings and fernando is expecting her. he knows her. the emotion are held back but he can read her. she's fucking furious.

or so he assumes. what does fernando really know about her? beside the profile, beside the wide collection of his record observations of her movements and reactions, beside the team of psychologist who condense these recordings into psychoanalysis of her very being. they're confident but fernando doesn't put his trust in them.

he relies on instinct.

fernando's eyes narrow. he never thought he'd find himself here. yet here he is, face to face with his greatest weakness.

it's about time he confronted his fears.

"what do you know?"

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perse

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POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 14:46:01 GMT

"no, fernando." an incline of her head to the side. she knew the gesture, they both did. she never thought she would have to play elysia for him again.

she stepped further into the room, though her gaze never left his eyes, as piercing and analysing as his own. they're from different schools but they had the same teacher, after all. "you're going to explain to me, and i am going to listen."

she felt leaden, like she wasn't here. consciousness attached by a string.

FERNANDO SILPH

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POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 14:51:37 GMT

a ghost of his past. fernando feels his fist tighten. how dare she? how dare she ruin the sanctity of her image. sacrilegious! and of her mother no less. it makes fernando envious.

the fever, it burns. the same fever that turns good men cruel. it nearly breaks him.

fernando never breaks eye contact. his hands may shift, one hand on the drawer to his desk, but he makes no sudden moves.

"do you remember our promise? the one i made to the amavi?"

from mother to daughter, from parent to child.

"the one i made to you?"

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TAG WITH @perse

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 15:01:59 GMT

she saw the hand movement, imagined him pulling out a gun and shooting her on the spot. it made her want to laugh at the irony.

persephone wouldn't beg him for anything; too proud, too spiteful.

"answer me properly."

she's at his desk now, close enough to touch him.

she always hated how he dealt in absolutes.

"after all, you are mine." she hoped it hurt him more than it burned to say.

FERNANDO SILPH

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POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 15:05:54 GMT

his hand falters. stays its place. he can't move now. not after that command. not when she says it with the same tone that enchants him to this very day.

"do you remember when i was taken from you. when i was whisked away."

it's happened twice. fernando will have to clarify which one. naturally, it's the one that hurts the most.

"when i was torn from you when i needed you most. do you remember why?"

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perse

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POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 15:13:24 GMT

she wants to contest the words - tear them apart by one. ran away not torn. she wanted to say that he never needed her; the haunting truth of it in every action he committed towards her, something akin to toying with a discarded broken doll.

he never came back. he only wants to hurt her.

"you never did clarify that to me either."

more prosaic than melancholy. it had long since ceased to matter why he left her alone then, just the fact that he did said more than any empty posturing.

she sits opposite him at the desk, folds her hands, and bites back fire.

FERNANDO SILPH

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POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 15:37:04 GMT

he finally tears away from her. they shift to the display. the images turn with a click of his tongue. what replaces the blank display is the sight of silph co. back during the raid, during the siege that tore him away to defend his home. blood splatters the walls. remnants of pokemon spread across the halls.

"they took saffron. they took silph co."

his eyes turn back to her.

"hundreds injured, dozens killed."

he knows she has a hero complex. he plays to it.

"they took the company. they slaughtered the employees, the civilians, anyone who got in their way."

his scowl turns into a frown. one that reminds him off the losses suffered, the screams that never escaped the fire.

"they took my country. they took my people-- my family persephone."

before, maybe she could've shrugged it off. not anymore. persephone had witnessed it first hand. slateport fell but fernando kept it standing. him and his army.

his resistance.

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TAG WITH @perse

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 16:10:16 GMT

she can't say the morbidity isn't entrancing, watching out of the corner of her eye as if reluctant to fully turn away from fernando, the images stirring her own memory ( things she could blur out with alcohol, other things, with him ).

the pang in her chest sent a fresh wave of anger down her spine. she hoped he saw her nails dig into her palm and read it at hostility toward rocket and not toward him.

"i'm well aware of rocket did in kanto and what they intend to do here." she couldn't take it, the obvious ploy to her nature. did he remember that blood used to make her cry? yes, no?

she turned from the screens, raised a single shoulder as though in question. irrelevant.

"but why this?"

FERNANDO SILPH

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POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 16:16:56 GMT

"i found him."

fernando lets out a sigh. all this comes down to a single sentence. the final revelation that paints the entirety of his destruction. the very reason that drives a man wild. the reason for the son of silph.

"i found my father's killer."

fernando eyes one of the various reports that line his desk. perse is free to pick up whichever one she wants.there's one of the event, one of fernando's psychological profile - certified by none other than the league - as well as one that describes a nameless man. team rocket's beast. not just anyone. the beast of beasts.

"his last words still haunt me."

his teeth clench.

"i lost my mother and my father that year."

she can hear it clatter, the tremble that causes his fangs to rattle against their edges.

"and by proxy i lost you too."

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perse

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TAG WITH @perse

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 16:37:12 GMT

the information feels like it's not meant for her, like she's eavesdropping on another's conversation. she watches him speak closely, clenching her jaw with a firm stubborness.

she feels her shoulders tense, the corners of her eyes go tight, narrowed for a heartbeat, but nothing more. she refuses to pity him.

and yet all she wanted to snarl back that there was nothing between the two of them, he never wanted her anyway. there was nothing to be lost in the first place.

that's untrue.

her mother would have touched his hand; she stared at it, then at the reports, reached for none of them.

she didn't doubt the veracity of what he said, and that was the worst part - being unable to disagree.

"the league deemed him a fit protector for my city. during the slateport invasion-" she cuts herself off, scorning her lapse in control. weak, they both knew it.

persephone forces herself to hold her tongue, inhale slowly. "your pain is my own, fernando." repeating his name like trying to snap him out of a trance.

FERNANDO SILPH

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POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 17:34:01 GMT

"the league is in shambles. the in-fighting never stops."

his conversatoin with dahlia goode are short. never more than a minute of her time, reserved to the formalities of unanswered e-mails. even so, fernando hears the whispers. gossip travels fast. it emboldens him.

"i applied to run for councilmen." he opens his own case file. everything checks out as normal. there's list of strengths, goals, weaknesses. her name is dotted in the field, bold red letters differentiates her from the rest. persephone is his kryptonite and the league knows it. "a branched asked me to check on him. to see if he's really reformed. they have their doubts, rightfully so."

fernando pauses.

"rumor has it that rocket has spies. not grunts, real spies. the ones in high places. another branch told me to take him out."

eyes narrow and he thinks back to that day. the bite of the SHEER COLD still nips at his bones.

"i'm not a murderer. he took my father and i thought of taking away his chance to be one. an eye for an eye. to spare him the tragedy of knowing a lost one."

he sighs, his shoulder slouch. fernando feels the weight of his actions. they come and unravel all at once.

"i do not want to become a dog. i will not submit myself to bureaucracy. but--"

"i. will. not. relive. kanto."

he finally closes his eyes. the back of his eyelids bring him a comfort that no one else will offer. sweet, sweet nothingness.

"i'm want to take silph co. public. i do not wish to let evil plague this land."

they open. he sees her. what meets her is not a smile but a scowl that looks to read her, to understand why she pits herself against him, against justice.

"i am not my own man. i cannot move without you. i will not lose you."

the picture of the three of them is accompanied by a new one. it's just the two of them. despite their difference, despite the anguish that comes from having their time together torn apart, fernando sneaks in a picture he managed to snap of the two of them. it puts @devon 's artistry to shame. it captures something indescribable.

"not again, persephone."

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perse

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november 23

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TAG WITH @perse

POSTED ON Oct 22, 2018 18:19:18 GMT

she can't say she's shocked - her skepticism of the league at large was something she voiced often, in varying degrees of jest and malice. maybe he knew that about her too.

"one branch says one thing, another says another. you are selectively picking out evidence and information to stoke your pain, fernando. i know what it's like to lose family, but you're jeopardising your council position before you have even received it," she says slowly, softer than anything else she had uttered up until that point.

he has to know, on some level, that she's right. being hostile in raising the point wouldn't help make him see that, after all, he's as stubborn as she is. "that's not like you, and you know it. acting based on vague and conflicting deductions? if you like, show me something current that firmly implicates him, but i know you can't do that or you would have done it."

posturing. the photograph, his expressions as if designed to pull at her. it worked, to a degree. though he tested it time and time again, this almost forced bond was infallible; too much happened between them for her deny him that much. her gaze linger on the photograph longer than it should.

after a moment, she relents, leans back to survey him, a long searching look as if she could decipher truth from manipulation by looking at his face long enough.

"what do you want from me?" her voice sounds foreign to her and came out sounding weaker and more helpless than she expected.

FERNANDO SILPH

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