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Part of Ash knows he might drown in the abyss. He may never come up for air, doomed to float to the bottom, with the Rocket cinderblock tied to his ankle, ensuring that the tar fills his lungs, ensnaring him to the doom that was to be a full-fledged Rocket. But...[break][break]

He wanted, desperately, to try. Ashley loves everyone in his life he's come to know. Naive as it sounded, maybe he wanted to do this and save a few more people from the claws of Rocket? Or maybe he was dilluding himself into this grand quest that's only ending was a tombstone, hoping he could convince goliath individuals to turn, but falling to earth to his own doom.[break][break]

Isaac can't convince him otherwise. He knows that he walks the line now. He balances left, he balances right. He goes back, and Rocket will never accept him again. He stays, and the League will never trust him period.[break][break]

Isaac was a beacon of light that was about to go out for Rocket.[break][break]

Might as well try to help fill in the role a little.[break][break]

"Glad you do trust me."[break][break]

The light may go out. But that doesn't mean it has to stay out. But as Ashley tries to find the heart to smile, he says instead.[break][break]

"Never stop fighting. You hear me? Not till the last. Even if Goode does shove her boot in your throat. Even if Gavin, or Zev, or hell, Walsh come down upon you. Never stop. Okay?"

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Gunfire. Fuck. Which meant that Landon (paxton concordas) Asshole Cassidy was here. He had to be careful now, he was in the frying pan, and as Katherine Fairburne shined a light on him, he could feel himself scowl as the heat turns on. "Always did want to be in the spotlight." Not like this though.[break][break]

Haku, his Dragonite, sensing the danger his trainer was in, made touchdown right in front of him, intent to take any attacks, holding something in their hand. The Dragonite gave a tiny roar, as if to intimidate any oncoming attackers... but she didn't have to. THEO BECKETT's Milotic from afar, came over to keep him safe... but he wonders, will Theo be fine?[break][break]

Theo can handle himself. It was kepler brueshaber he was worried about, and seeing that Gunk Shot make headway, he's about to charge in in desperation, when[break][break]

Wait...[break][break]

Ashley moved to grab that 'something', and eyed what Haku had found, the Dragonite pulling Ashley into a small, tight, enclosed hug. "... the skeleton burrowed chasm deep... seeping rot upon our fields. Holes bore into the heavens, beckoning a knight of pure light who shone brighter than our traveling lamp..." He takes a second, reads it over, eyes towards Haku, and back to the paper.[break][break]

What the fuck?[break][break]

Pocketed for now. He'd bring it up later. For now... he needs to get over there. He's almost certain he knows who is there. He can feel it burning in him. If Landon is on the field, Ashley would have to run. Beginning a light job now, Haku follows right behind, and his eyes shine with conviction, and he's about to shove his foot somewhere between Landon's ass and colon, when he's stopped.[break][break]

By.[break][break]

A king?[break][break]

"Today just keeps getting weirder..."[break][break]

The little man is a pompous dick, lifting up two people he doesn't know, and two he does. Kind of. One of them was from that phone app (illeana reyes), and the other... he gets an inkling on, but he isn't too sure. But suddenly, the little man speaks. Set aside their differences? Feats of heroism? Ashley's brow raises, and he looks away. What are you... a child? That was the initial thing in his mind, but he shakes it off, only to look at the beast.[break][break]

He's still a decent bit away from Kep. If they were making a ceasefire, he'd have a minute to react. Haku floated nearby, preparing to smite down anyone who dared to oppose them.[break][break]

So he moves to ask the little king one question.[break][break]

"The hero you speak of is the knight of pure light, isn't it? They got a name?"[break][break]

The moment he hears Landon shouting not too far away, Ashley makes up his mind.[break][break]

"Hammerlocke." He didn't want revenge anymore. But... he wasn't risking it. Landon was his fight.[break][break]

[break]

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It takes him a little longer to finally get himself together. It isn't enough. It can't be enough. It'll never be enough. It comes. It finally goes. And with it, he finally stops the sobs.[break][break]

Ashley wanted to be a hero once a long time ago in the orphanage. He remembered it. It felt like it had been locked away, incapable of being in his memory with what he had done, with the lives he had taken. But he did. He remembered wearing an old used bedsheet like a cape and fighting kids twice his size in the orphanage at the tender age of eight. He remembered how much pain he was in trying to rescue this one girl's dolls from these bullies.[break][break]

He remembered the comics that inspired him.[break][break]

The world is so much crueler than that memory, but for a moment, he could feel his younger self say it openly, like it had been a mantra to little Ash. I want to protect everyone. Just you watch me.[break][break]

He never did get that one girl's doll back. Even a failure back then. But the thing about failure, is that every failure builds and builds and builds. He failed dozens of times to get it back from those bullies, so much so that eventually, they got so tired of kicking the shit out of Ash, they gave it to her. Her smile was the world to him.[break][break]

The only necessity for success is the willingness to suffer one-thousand failures.[break][break]

Ashley had no talent. He tried and failed, and failed, and failed. But in every failure, he kept building higher and higher. He couldn't do it naturally, and each time he pushed over the edge, he failed more. The loss against Farhan. The slanted victory, yet terrible failure against PENELOPE LIVY and paxton concordas in Meteno, the latter winning the second time. The failure against Isaac Merlo to win in their mock battle, and even the one against Cillian Quinn. The failure to help kepler brueshaber's heart attack in the Borders with Isaac and Tempest Quinn. The battle against Greyson Connors in Ultra Sea. The lighthouse duel with jayden cross. The battle on Slateport Beach against THEO BECKETT. Every last one of those battles, he lost, to some degree, even if the end result was slightly favorable. Each battle, he kept pushing it. He kept gaining more knowledge, and growing. He learned. He embodied effort.[break][break]

Compared to him now, he was nowhere close to the man he was after he left Kanto all those years ago.[break][break]

He lets go of Eris. He wipes his face. Laguna, who squelches nearby, stays in his hoodie pocket, and Ash finally speaks as he stands.[break][break]

"Sorry Eris. Bit of a weak moment there." The hint of the smile was coming back. The lowest moment finally turning around, as he places a hand on her head, ruffling up her hair. "I'm... I'll be okay."

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Part of him wants to tell Isaac he's wrong. No. There isn't. But even Ashley believes it. Because he believes it, however... He tries to let it sit in the air a second, turning to Isaac. "There isn't a lot left to save. But I said you're one of the last things left. Doesn't mean the only one, man."[break][break]

It was so obvious.[break][break]

Ash had learned that lesson so long ago. Back when he left the first time. Rocket was the worst part of Rocket. It was the damning part of themselves. The skeleton in the closet was a mirror, because everything bad they embody is a reflection.[break][break]

Not all of them deserved to be forsaken.[break][break]

It was as simple as that. Even if it meant sinking further down, he would. Maybe he could get out himself. But this wasn't a self-vendetta like it had been. It was this part of Isaac that inspired him, after all. It sounds heroic, going over it in his head.[break][break]

So he spoke plainly.[break][break]

"... someone has to stay to help the people like you who need to get out, you know. Can't do everything from the outside." He'd try.[break][break]

That's all he can do for Isaac. He can't go with him. He's at peace with that. He may be here for the inevitable Rocket downfall. Maybe he dies. But if he can save Isaac...[break][break]

Who's to say he can't help save more?

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Like a bubble, huh?[break][break]

That made sense. Everyone had their personal space, and when someone invaded it, took too much, or did something in that bubble that the other person didn't want, that karmic bite would always come in like a bear trap. It made Ashley wince, but it had a certain element of truth to it.[break][break]

Though people like Isaac had none such to speak of.[break][break]

A familiar name leaves her lips, and Ashley's silver eyes light up with recognition, as he turns to face her. Part of him wonders if she and he had done jobs together. He felt a bitter pang in his chest. Why him? Why was it always Jay? He's not irritated, just a little curious now. Though when he understands why, he chuckles.[break][break]

"Nah. I always come back." He says, feeling proud now of his survival on Mt. Pyre during Meteno, and in the Ultra Sea. "Sides. I'm not cheater either. He trusts me." He shoots Naia a big ol' smile, twisting in his seat, arm over the back now before turning it to the window.[break][break]

Now or never, he supposes.[break][break]

"How... do you know Jayden?" he inquires, a brow risen.[break][break]

It was an innocent enough question, but one that would plague his mind if he didn't know.

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Quite the opposite, actually. Ashley was projecting a little, because he was rationalizing it. He was trying to think of it as the best exit strategy for Isaac. He could do it. And it would kill him, it would hurt and hurt and hurt some more, but Isaac could feasibly leave.[break][break]

To some degree, Ashley wished he could. But he can't. Not right now. He knows he can't.[break][break]

But he raises a point. One that leaves Ashley smiling still, tears still staining at his cheeks. If they did that, they would be even weaker, even more pathetic. If Rocket does that, he would leave again. And this time, vow to paint the wall's with Walsh's blood for every death on his hands. Maybe that was revenge. Maybe it should be. But he holds himself back from that. He doesn't reveal it that way.[break][break]

"Yeah. I know, man. You've already made up your mind... you already know the risks. You have to. You know them and you want this anyways. Wanted to be sure." He had no doubt he might get approached with executing Isaac. Hell, they might even taunt Adminship to him if he did it, and Ash would rather spit in Walsh's face a thousand times than to ever dare fall in line. He could kiss his ass, for all Ash cared.[break][break]

It doesn't hurt any less to hear if Isaac was able to be saved.[break][break]

"You don't think so? Why?" In all honesty, he can argue endlessly with Isaac, he could fight him tooth and nail, push and push and push... but he doesn't want to be seen as anything less to him. So he just continues looking up with a smile.[break][break]

"Isaac."[break][break]

Crumble away.[break][break]

His smile is gone, and choking on small sobs, he pushes it all down to be able to speak. He tells him.[break][break]

"You are one of the last parts of Rocket worth saving."[break][break]

He pulls Isaac into a hug. A long, long hug as the waves crash again. Only a few Rockets fit that category. Isaac was one of them.[break][break]

Dark clouds in the distance now, threatening the world with the promise of rain. He doesn't know how long he can hug him.[break][break]

If he lets go. That's it.

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It sounded oddly comforting. Depressing in a way, yes, being seen as a disappointment. Ashley never knew how it felt to even be registered AS a disappointment, let alone as a child to someone. At best, foster parents had attempted. Most of the time, they were abusive. He never knew parental love from a parent. At best, he knew of it from a drug addicted mother who got him out when she could, but that was it.[break][break]

So alien. He sips on his shake, and leans back to look back to Naia as she asks him about kepler brueshaber. "Nah, nothing like that. You can work with someone often, like I do with Isaac Merlo, but... I'm talking more romantically." He gives a very big smile on his face, as he looks down to his hand, holding the shake.[break][break]

"Kep is the smartest, sassiest person I know. He's this sweet flower who you just want to watch bloom. He grounds me in reality, and anchors me to whatever happiness I have left here in Rocket. My moonlight in the night." He speaks so well of the apple of his eye, that as he takes another sip, he hardly needs to elaborate. "I... don't want him to see me kill. I guess I'm protective of my image with him."[break][break]

Who could blame him? After all. The last time he hardly came back at all. More of his soul burned away. The scales keep trying to tip him one way, and he has to course correct.[break][break]

"Parents... that's just so odd. My only experience is my father trying to overdose my pregnant mom when she had me. He's dead now though."[break][break]

And that one would sit in the air for a moment. Ash taking a long sip from his shake.

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It was never going to work. Ashley already knew that. And he knew that Isaac knew it too. But it was nice. It was... pleasant to know that he still cared enough to want to save him. But this wasn't a two-ticket kind of save.[break][break]

This train was a ticket for one. And there's a reason for that.[break][break]

"You're not losing me." But then he had to make sure Isaac understood why this had to be this way. "But you have to understand, you can get out. You have the chance. Rocket, they'll use whatever they can to get to you. If I tried again, Jayden would kill me this time. And they'd be able to do it quickly this time too. Because they could use Kepler as a hostage." It wasn't just jayden cross either. Cillian Quinn could do it too. Hell, the idea of letting Zev Harcourt get his hands on kepler brueshaber left Ashley so distraught that he knew he was enslaved to Rocket for life.[break][break]

But Isaac? He had a chance.[break][break]

Ashley could save him from the same pain. The same harrowing path, the same tightrope that led from heaven and hell, that pulled him one way, and pulled him the other. The saving grace being that he would fall one way one day.[break][break]

"I appreciate that... but..." He gives Isaac a big smile with tears running down his face as he says it bluntly.[break][break]

"I'll be okay. I promise. I can't depend on you forever... and you've saved me so many times." His smile fumbles, and his silver eyes prick more tears.[break][break]

"Let me save you. Just this once."

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Out-sassed, and out-voted. Ashley didn't want to reveal to that asshole Rocket that he was bothered about that vote, but he did stir the pot. The unknown was a compelling argument, and it wasn't that he was acting against the man. He was honestly just trying to explain his viewpoint, but then the energetic girl (Xenon Antheil) who called him... whatever it was? She raised a point.[break][break]

Enough that even Isaac Merlo hopped aboard. That stung a little, but he can't blame the guy. ana fell and some other guy (elijah gardner) said A for Ashley. Made him feel a little better.[break][break]

Immediately dashed upon being in a team with the jackass, and the man already decided on their team name. Team Sword? That was awfully boring, but Ashley wasn't going to let the guy know. Crossing his arms, he gives him a look. "Yeah. Sure."[break][break]

What rotten luck.[break][break]

Teamwork was a two-way street. Instead of being combative, he just relaxes himself, realizing how much less it got him, and simply takes it in stride. Wouldn't be his fault they'd lose. Quite the contrary.

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Nothing Eris could have said could have stopped it, but ti felt nice to at least be hugged, and helped through this. Even so, as he looks to the sky, his face matted in a combination of his tears and his sorrow, and the chilling spring rain, he sobs more. He can't stop. It won't ever stop.[break][break]

He can't even save a single person.[break][break]

He can't do anything himself.[break][break]

He was a failure.[break][break]

It's like a roaring lion, letting it all out, letting every bit of his heart burn and bleed, as he tries, he desperately tries to stop the freefall that was agony. He let it consume him. Blood and death was all he knew. It was all he ever knew. Suffering. It let him be more, but in its own corrosive embrace, it had warped him too. Even his dreams. He started this wanting to own an orphanage one day.[break][break]

Now he was a warped person too. And he got to exemplify that fact. Every bit of blood. Over. And over. And over. And over again.[break][break]

He couldn't save a single person. Pokemon or human. His best wasn't enough.[break][break]

It did comfort him though... Eris was helping.

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Thankfully for them, not many people were around. Not a lot of people want a milkshake in the cold and the rain. It was staggeringly few, but those workers were paid to be there, and Ash and Naia could at least benefit a little.[break][break]

Still, her story was a lot better than his. A lot happier, it seemed. She got to have a mom. She got to have a dad. And on the mention of a third job, Ashley's silver eyes widened. "Three? Yeesh, and here I thought hustle culture was toxic. You're over here running the marathon." He jesters lightly, but quits as he looked over his own milkshake, swishing it around.[break][break]

He wanted to ask why, but maybe money was tight. Or maybe it was a trust thing. Or maybe... something else.[break][break]

"How is having a mom and dad, anyways?"[break][break]

It's an innocent enough question, and one that actually does plague his mind. Ashley never got to feel the real love of a mother, or the pride of a father. He never got to enjoy those things. They felt so foreign to him, and yet it seemed like she had them, and that was that. Like a cursory glance, and that was it.[break][break]

"Mom had to give me away when I was young. Dad was-" he bites his bottom lip, turning to the inky blackness. "Dad was real problematic." He finally finishes, not wishing to go into it further.

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With that. It was all but confirmed.[break][break]

The gators sat and watched, as the wave crashes upon the beach. Epiphany never comes, because it was known to begin with. The sheer terror of understanding what that meant, like it crashing down on them both. What it means. What it could do to everything. The horror of years of looking over his shoulder, of walking in the shadow to survive.[break][break]

It's crushing.[break][break]

Ashley doesn't say much at first. Because he knows the feeling all too well. He knows what it is. Because he had a similar moment with his best friend years ago. The roles, however, were reversed. Because now, he was the one too stained by Rocket to ever feel clean. Ashley sat there, agony washing through him. Another crash of waves, and Isaac explains everything he's been thinking for the past six months.[break][break]

He doesn't like what that means for him though. What that means for Isaac, to walk this path into hell. Because this meant that every Rocket would see him exactly as they saw him; a traitor. The fear, the anxiety, the trouble that comes with the rank and title.[break][break]

"Yeah."[break][break]

Can he say anything else but the acknowledgment to the falling grace of Rocket? To the slow push for blood. The cut that let it seep down. The coat that reapplied itself. And Ashley once again finds himself at that moment of isolation he did a long, long time ago. The choice that set in front of him. What that means for Isaac.[break][break]

So, pulling from the embrace, he lays down on the beach.[break][break]

He looks at the sky.[break][break]

He stares for a long, long while.[break][break]

"I can't stop you. Not going to either. You've made up your mind a long time ago." Was it any less true? Ashley felt like he always knew it would end this way. But even so, he feels himself smiling.[break][break]

"... I was going to ask you to be my best man, you know... now if I invite you, when that day comes, blood will be on our hands." His eyes begin to well up, but he doesn't let it out. He's done so much recently, he's been so twisted, so hurtful, hateful... he forgot what his goal had been the whole time.[break][break]

To fix Rocket.[break][break]

"I remember that talk, you know. How I told you I left because of the bloodshed. Nightmares for years, waking up in cold sweats... I think it would be good for you. You need to get away before it ruins who you are." He tries to hold it back, but the sadness on his face is easy to see. With all his might, he holds it back for his friend. To him, he will not let himself be the reason that Isaac stays. He wanted to save Isaac.[break][break]

...[break][break]

In a way... his conversation with Eris Halla finally rears its head, and though he does let it out, he smiles. Correcting the mistake of how he and Jayden went, he can feel happy.[break][break]

So why does it still hurt like hell?[break][break]

Finally get to save one person... huh?[break][break]

"You gonna be okay with that? They'll hunt you down. You'll be another target to them... you know that, won't you?" He remembers how jayden cross came at him. And his brief stint with THEO BECKETT, where he had a chance, a microcosm of a chance to continue his clean slate.[break][break]

"You gonna be okay with that?" he repeats. This isn't about anyone BUT him.

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It's gotten worse.[break][break]

Here they sit, in a small eighties diner, quietly watching from the window the pouring raining getting worse by the second. It was bad before, but now it was like a full ass storm was blowing through with no intent to stop, nor to slow down. Rustboro just had a good sewer system. He hoped that were the case, anyways.[break][break]

He winces at the thought.[break][break]

Still, sitting here with a strawberry-banana milkshake in front of him, covered head-to-toe in the rain, he felt content. With silver strands of hair matted unevenly over his face, he looked through where he could to his newbie; Naia. She'd done well the last mission. Now, it was just time for her to enjoy herself. Celebrate. Down a milkshake, maybe get a bite.[break][break]

"So. What's your story?" He smiles, turning his head towards the darkness of the streets outside, the streetlights even obscured by the downpour. He wanted to know Naia's story, at least. If he intended to work with her more, he wanted to know who he was working with.[break][break]

Little icebreaker, it was.

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