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Chaos unravels their ability to follow the events that filters into the wars around them. The chain at their neck feels painfully burdensome, toxicity pumping into their system and grinding their mind to a sluggish blear of disconnected thoughts and scattered images.[break][break]

Their mind, already susceptible from the wants of the mask and their frustration of running through their dreams to little success in search of their patron, the chain’s influence takes greater hold. Around them, others fight and claw their way to freedom—wield abilities that should be impossible when they wield the chains to their success. Fern only watches, eyes dazed until a tug at their hand prompts them to stagger forward at a clumsy pace. Coaxed to escape by jayden cross’s presence and silent guidance.[break][break]

It is difficult to move, poison sluicing through their system with vertigo spin. Their vision tunnels, breath picking up as a cold sweat prickles up the back of their neck and their stomach rolls. They just have to make it to the lift. And then they all converge.[break][break]

Dimly, Fern can feel the bolster THEO BECKETT lends, though they do not use it to fight. Their mind clears, just enough to alert them to the tendril the underboss cast off in aid. Their posture straightens, as if mutely waking from a stupor.[break][break]

They don’t immediately notice jayden cross’s pinpointed attention on Noel Parker. How space grows between them as he unleashes the brunt of what he can do on the other person, who is, by all accounts, a stranger to them. They have little time to ask, or to coax him to snap out of it. Time speeds and before they know it, he is collapsing under the brunt of toxin and expended abilities. “Jayden!” Their tongue feels fat and wrong in their mouth, but panic sharpens their clarity with sudden, near-overwhelming vivacity.[break][break]

They acknowledge THEO BECKETT’s should with a nod, but they didn’t need the command to react to it. The thrum of their toxic chain hums to life as they notice the blonde. Her own chains curling around his partner with a draining relish. It has been awhile, but they recognize annalise henderson from that day on the slopes of Mt. Pyre with Meteno overhead. How they had been greatly amused when she had gone at Marza Volchitsa with a cat fight sort of petty furor. All claws and chipped, manicured nails.[break][break]

But Fern is not laughing now.[break][break]

“Hey!” they bark from behind her. The lash of their chain signals the snap of an invisible, mental tether in their mind. A constraint that loops around her and yanks at her in the effort to detach her chain from Jayden. They draw themself closer, a hand clamping on her wrist. “Back off.” Their other hand comes up, the flat of their palm cracking across her cheek with audible sound. Then they shove her—as hard as they can, just to throw her off balance and shift them away from each other.[breaK][break]

Vertigo makes the world spin around them again, but Fern tries to push through the wave of poison that washed through them again. “Are you alright?” Fern wheezes, but obviously he’s not. Panic rises like a gorge in their throat as they try to cling to whatever semblance of control they can still grasp. They are not strong enough to lift jayden cross, not with their arms. Bursts of light dot the corners of their vision as they focus and let their mind worth that same invisible pull hoist them up. “Alright, Duck. Up with you.” There’s no time to stop and breathe, though they badly need it.[break][break]

Not if they want to get out of there before annalise henderson catches up with them again. They keep him hefted up with the strain of their mind, and beeline for the first exit their eyes land on. Even as poison pumps heavier through their limbs the longer they keep it up.
[break][break]

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jayden cross[break]
+ toxic chain power: psychic telekinesis that allows him to draw others to them protectively, as if they were tethered. (like a brain lasso???)[break]
+ fern is badly poisoned!![break]
+ honestly has been a bit incoherent and woozy up to this point[break]
+ focuses up real fast tho when jayden cross collapses[break]
+ I’m sorry annalise henderson, ur getting yanked and slapped[break]
+ main action: they are so ill but they are absconding to the nearest escape hole after helping jayden cross ty

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The city was just as it had been left, to no one’s great surprise.[break][break]
“I’m inclined to agree—though this one was a bit eager to leave the city, strangely enough.” They still hadn’t quite worked out why though. “Energy shortage across space, you mean?”[break][break]
Fern watched the poipole curiously— unmoving as it drifted closer before it hurried away under its trainer’s watchful eyes. They shrugged, unbothered. They were often curious as well, following after shiny things.
It was that curiosity that had drawn them and Tapu Koko together, after all.[break][break]
And the mention of Tapu Bulu was enough for the intrigue to bubble up to the surface again. Though Tapu Koko feigned indifference as it floated just ahead, Fern didn’t fail to notice that it hung back just a tiny bit.[break][break]
Attentive.[break][break]
“Oh yes, I’ve not encountered it myself, but I’ve read the reports. Though, I’m hopeful we’ll be lucky today as well.” Their glance moves over to Lulu and then back to Tapu Koko. “There have been sightings of a Bulu here as well.”[break][break]
This one shiny as well, but if they’re one in the same, Fern can’t be sure.[break][break]
“It raises the question if a Fini and Lele might be lurking in these rifts as well.”

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Fern’s brow furrows, “Really? Nothing at all?” Their eyes fix on their patron again, head tilting in consideration. “That’s strange to me. Though…I’m so used to being independent, maybe it’s a bit difficult for me to feel like it wasn’t a total invasion.”[break][break]
Another laugh, albeit softer this time. “Tapu Koko isn’t in my head or anything. It doesn’t speak to me. But it’s impossible to not sense it.”
As their finger traces the rim of their teacup, little sparks of static electricity crackle. Absent afterthought.[break][break]
“But maybe it’s just the nature of the gift it gave. Electricity is energy, after all.” Fern nods, stare finally tearing away from the little terror. “If you had lightning running through you at will, you’d feel the rush too, no?”

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“Underboss, sir,” Fern greets, voice chipper as they round the corner of a decrepit building. One they’d decided to poke around while waiting for THEO BECKETT to arrive.[break][break]
One right near the rift to and from the old, Megalopolan city. So it’s not like they wandered too far.[break][break]
“I’m glad you’ve joined us today.” At us, Tapu Koko floats into view, pincers clicking together–eager to drift deeper into the city. The sooner the better.

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[“Mm.” Fern hummed in agreement. “There are still some around, I think you’ll find.” Their foot kicked away a bit of rubble in their path. Blue eyes cut toward Oscar–mischievous. “Though they’re not exactly in their right minds.” It was a curious place. One that drew Fern in more than other rifts had. Though Fern figured that was to do with the shard that had detonated and opened the doorway.[break][break]
And Tapu Koko.[break][break]
The island deity floated along with them now, restless as it often was whenever they returned.[break][break]
Fern fell into amused quiet as Oscar’s attention deviated. Stooping, they gathered a few of the ineffective z-crystals and offered them to Tapu Koko. They were swiftly rejected–apparently these were not as appealing as the primal shard had been. “There’s always a sort of beauty in destruction, don’t you think?” they ask by way of reply.[break][break]
“Wandering blindly,” they add after a beat as they move forward again. “There’s no real guideline I have. No template. Just looking for what this one reacts to.” Their head nods to their patron.[break][break]
The familiar shape of a z-crystal is splayed across the front of a machine lined up against a shattered storefront. Fern peered curiously at it and then plunked one of the z-crystals they’d been holding into the slot. It promptly spit out a…beverage?[break][break]
“Huh.” Fern bent to collect the bottle, “how ‘bout that.” Cracking the lid, they took a sniff and then glanced Oscar’s way. “Bottoms up?”[break][break]

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“If I were lazy, maybe,” they reply, shoulder rising and falling in a nonchalant shrug. “Awful lot of confidence in yourself, though.”[break][break]

Fortunately, Fern feels pretty self-assured at present too.[break][break]

A laugh crawls up their throat, the sound harsh. “You people? My. Someone is presumptuous today.” The phone turns in their hands. “That’s a bluff I’m not willing to fall for.” Their head tilts, eyes brightening with sudden consideration. “Nice try at egging my ego on, though.” Unfortunately for Hoenn’s dear champ, their pride comes from their craftiness rather than whatever else he might’ve had in mind.[break][break]

Across the plain, Tapu Koko clashes with its opposite. It pays little attention to the raboot’s flames, even when they threaten to singe its tail feathers. In a radial sweep, NATURE’S MADNESS unfurls—seeking to bowl over the bunny and CIAN MAHER alike, before it climbs higher into the air.[break][break]

Beckoning its mirror into a dance.[break][break]

Fern’s attention, however, cannot dedicate itself to observing power in motion while they have The Emergent to contend with. A dance of their own, they suppose. “Excellent.” Their eyes flash wildly, jackal grin stretching toothily across their face as a hand clamps onto their wrist.[break][break]

They let the phone drop to the ground, but laughter follows rather than any plea of immediate surrender. “Think fast!”[break][break]

Their arm twists, wrist wiggling in his grasp so that Fern’s own hand curls tight around Kyle’s, as though they were forming some sort of sacred pact. Then the electricity in their veins builds and flares outward in a burst. A current that runs fast and white-bright extending from their palm through the conduit of contact to the other man.[break][break]

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Any amendment of the title is left unaddressed, so Fern thinks little of it. It’s very likely they’ll continue calling her the same, or they will simply forget. It is a toss up giving their more flippant traits.[break][break]
“Glad to hear it.” She gave them no reason to assume otherwise. should a problem arise, they would deal with it then. Tapu Koko darted through the rift abruptly, not bothering to wait for its present company.[break][break]
“Not many,” Fern admitted. “Just that it all seems connected. The shard, defunct as it was, is what drew Tapu Koko to me here in the first place.”[break][break]
So they have to wonder if it has something to do with why the guardian was here in the city to begin with.[break][break]
Gesturing at the rift with a sweeping hand, they glanced askance at the scientist. “Shall we, then?” And with little to do about it, they took a skipping step forward through the access point.

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Settled back into their chair, they observe Tempest with a placid gaze, though it does skirt to Tapu Koko a time or two– just to be sure it isn’t breaking any of the things it pulls from their shelf and discards on the office floor.[break][break]
“My feelings, hm?” They echo as their head tilts. Then a peal of laughter follows– light and amused. “Well I am never in short supply of those, so I hope it proves interesting.”[break][break]
Fingers drum on the top of the desk absently, and then Fern reaches for their cup to sip from as they ponder the question.[break][break]
“Well, I suppose I was awfully irritated at first.” they admit. “I prefer a certain degree of…autonomy.” Fern’s eyes drift back to the guardian. “And though it helped the lot of us back in a tight situation, it very much felt like I was being as a ticket out too.”[break][break]
Then the blue of their eyes sparks with something wild. “But it was a rush too.”

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“You think a lock can stop Tapu Koko?” Fern asked in turn, a brow lifting. It couldn’t, of course, as far as they were aware. Though it might grow frustrated for a moment, trying to snap at the doorknob with its pincers. But that didn’t mean Howard knew that.[break][break]
Just a little bit of mischief. For roping them into all this paperwork.[break][break]
Clearly the other admin didn’t share the same penchant for silly amusements, which was a shame. But then again, Fern had their own adjustment period to the guardian’s destructive, curious habits.[break][break]
“Hm, a fair point. Which is why I appreciated the critique.” Their mouth pulled into a thin smile. Then they slumped back in their chair with a beleaguered sigh.[break][break]
“Always working, where is your sense of fun?” Fern paused, “But yes. I need some more phthalo green, please and thank you.”[break][break]
The nudge made them grumble, and they sullenly grabbed at another folder. Peering over the edge of it at Howard, Fern rolled their eyes. “Blah blah League, be on the ball, blah blah. Now that is the real reason.” Their eyes sparkled like a furret that had swiped something particularly shiny, and they pocketed the information for later.[break][break]
“What good does it do you to be scared of your equal? How exactly does one ‘rely on others’ if you’re frightened?” They shrug, and a titter of amused laughter crawled up their throat. “That’s just simple intimidation.”

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“Fair point!” Fern howls over the gale winds and the rush of ocean spray that leaps up to meet them. “I’d probably be a little fed up too!” But if that were the cause, does that mean it won’t be too keen to get anywhere near Rocket too? Probably.[break][break]
No matter— it’s not like they’re making some great attempt to actually capture Kyogre today. They’d probably need just a tiny bit more man power, even if Fern bears the bond of Tapu Koko’s patronage.[break][break]
“Like what sort of contingencies?” Their eyes dart down to the Beast. They didn’t doubt him, of course—but a hint for whatever Plan B is would be useful.[break][break]
Fern pursues from the air as Mint’s lapras attempts to freeze the beast up. “I’ll do what I can~” they chime back, finding said trackers where they were tucked in an inner coat pocket. “Alright Ceci, wait for just the right moment.”[break][break]
Fern coos low to their dragapult and she poises herself for the moment Kyogre bellows low, maw splitting open wide to reveal rows of sharp teeth. The PHANTOM FORCE sucks them up and spits them out just in time for Fern to chuck one of the devices as hard as they can into its mouth before Cecilia arcs away in a sweeping curve.

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They scour the city for as long as the dream allows.[break][break]
They turn down every alley, every street they can for some sign of their patron. Even the electricity that flares from their feet in a sweeping ELECTRIC TERRAIN fails to bring Tapu Koko back to them. Surely, they haven’t been abandoned with the power of lightning still in their hands. Surely not—[break][break]
Wrenched from their dreaming, the cityscape warps and shatters around them as they’re pulled back to harsh reality. There is no comfort found in waking up in a tangle of BARNABY FINCH’s and jayden cross’s limbs because they are plucked from their cell by sturdy hands and forceful grip.[break][break]
There is no time to register the sensation of tears or the taste of saline on their tongue.[break][break]
The command descends from on high, and for a moment, Fern wonders what it is they’ve done to earn this, but it doesn’t quite matter, does it? Not in a place like this.[break][break]
Laughter swells to a symphonic crescendo around them. The sound climbs up the prison walls, echoing in the chamber with a clamor that makes them feel enclosed and small. Trapped.[break][break]
Fern’s lip curls in the face of it. An unmasked face that sneers in the direction of fezandipiti as it proclaims itself the greatest and them the least.[break][break]
They are no stranger to mockery.[break][break]
Ridicule is an old, well known friend.[break][break]
Because for all of their panache and their flair and their confidence, they are still the weird boy from Stow-on-Side. The skinny little smart aleck with second hand clothes and an unnervingly unbothered stare.[break][break]
The boy that spends too much time in Glimwood Tangle making friends of the ghosts.[break][break]
The freak who can never take a hint and leave the rest alone no matter how often he doesn’t get picked.[break][break]
Fern has always found ways to be picked since then, whether genuine or underhanded. They carry that boy with them. And they wield him now as they consider spitting at the tall, elegant bird’s feet.[break][break]
They sneer and bare their teeth.[break][break]
They will not break.[break][break]
They cannot.[break][break]
They are proud, and if they can get back to that mask they’ll reclaim their desires with tightly wound fists.[break][break]
Freak. Ugly.[break][break]
The familiar note of jayden cross’s laughter breaks through the rest. Familiar, despite his mask held in place.[break][break]
Their resolve wavers. The weakest point in a blade is where the steel is improperly folded. A weak point that can shatter the whole thing if it’s struck just right.[break][break]
A stricken expression finds him as the laughter is compelled to continue, forced up his throat until the sound is raw and manic. Fern’s mouth loses its snide resistance. They do not crumple or howl or cry.[break][break]
Their lips press in a thin line, but they flinch as if they’ve been slapped. They will not give fezandipiti the satisfaction. They look away from jayden cross and fix narrowed, silent eyes upon the bird, but the cowing is there in subtle tics. The jump and twitch of muscles in their clenched jaw and behind their eyes as they try and fail to not wince away from the sound.[break][break]
It goes on[break][break]
It goes on[break][break]
And on[break][break]
And on.[break][break]
To return to their mask afterward is a relief. The silence that falls when the jeering subsides is deafening. They meet no one’s eyes, and though they don’t snap and lash out, or tilt into a full-scale calamity, Fern withdraws.[break][break]
They sink into the tedium of work and eat and work and dream.[break][break]
In their dreams, they still search for Tapu Koko.[break][break]
In their dreams they fail.[break][break]
They wake, they withdraw, they sometimes consult with others. They drag through the day, just so they can run through their dreams again. Continually on the hunt.[break][break]
And maybe they’ll outrun the laughter if they move fast enough too.[break][break]

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jayden cross[break]
+ yikes time to wake up and get laughed at[break]
+ flashback hour![break]
+ stubbornly defies fezandipiti and refuses to crack. But loses some resolve with jayden cross joins in[break]
+ it’s not fun when ur bf laughs!![break]
+ tries to ignore it, sinks into the monotony, and keeps looking for tapu koko

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