the tapir beside her is ill at ease. her hooves have only touched the ground several times since they've made it through the portal and though the air is (somewhat) breathable, there is an alien discomfort at being able to carve through it like a school of feebas. 

sylvie fishes her map out of her pocket. much of it is already filled in from previous rockets' expeditions, but they've only scratched the surface of these other planes. she hmms and then flicks her wrist; momentum carries the paper through the air towards her partner. 

"i say we keep going west. looks like north and east have been scouted pretty far out already."

Isaac Ward

☉

"trust me, when i care, you'll know it," she says with a wink, amused only because she can see every ounce of disdain for her on lex's pretty, angular face. hot, sweaty steam pours out from the microwave and the sad, flat burrito manages to kill sylvie's appetite for the next five years. 

"leaving your burrito out of it," sylvie relents, nose crinkling as lex takes a fuck you bite out of it. if the cheese wasn't mostly plastic, it surely would have gooped out of the pocket of tortilla with her waving. sylvie follows her pointing, obviously does not see anything but the shitty, broken concrete and brackish weeds outside lex's window, and then looks back.

"i've heard garlic tastes better when it's thrown in trash bags and stomped on by some crazy alolan man's bare feet," she says with a shrug. she knows the story. should've shut them down for sure, but hey, who's she to knock someone's culture?

"i'd say your burrito's also somewhere between a D and an F on the 'fit for human consumption' scale, but i did say i would leave it out of our tiff. so anyway, at least leave limbs out of garbage disposals next time. they're such a bitch to clean."

Alexandra Briarwood
a restaurant in my hometown was shut down for exactly that reason lmfao

☉

"oh, please don't mistake my exhaustion for caring," she says with a snort. crimson eyes flicker when lex goes for her wrist. she raises her chin, smiling like the devil, but then yelps as she's ripped brutishly down and away from the microwave.

sylvie stoops, bites her lip, and grins tantalizingly up at a woman who could very well strangle her right here and now. it wouldn't be the worst way to go, she thinks idly, though she had always wanted to see altomare.

"i'm a pragmatist. no use treating the symptoms if you don't intend to take care of the problem. and i've deemed your burritos? definitely the problem."

she rubs her wrist, nearly unphased.

"is it gluttony, then? the demon we must sate?" she laughs. "guess you have lined my pockets recently. come on. there's a good alolan place down the street. my treat."

Alexandra Briarwood

☉

pollux waits patiently on the other side of the door. when lex pushes herself off the wall, sylvie lets her get a couple of paces away and gently opens it. the umbreon scoots in, she closes the door, and then presses her back against it again, this time with her arms folded. 

"body parts flung haphazardly around a shitty apartment don't make for an art piece," she says coolly and raises a brow. next is the heart of the matter. she doesn't care, really, but this is part of solving a problem. cut down to the root of it and it makes cleaning up the mess a whole lot easier. 

"it's the mark of someone who wants to be caught." she moves away from the door. pollux follows at her heels. when the microwave beeps again, sylvie darts forward to wrap her fingers around the handle. 

her burrito is now a hostage.

"it's a cry for help."

Alexandra Briarwood

☉

to lex's credit, anyone in the right state of mind probably would have pissed themselves at this point. but sylvie's seen every emotion one can in another's eyes, and murderous intent just isn't there. still, her shoulder blades hurt and her neck is a bit uncomfortable from the ex-beast's iron grip. 

"i work for terrorists," she snorts. "there'll always be bodies to dispose of. 'sides, you get chummy with the dead as long as i have, you kinda stop giving a shit about the other side."

nightmares still linger. it feels wrong to call them dreams, as bloody as they are, but they don't leave her gasping in the morning or shaking in the middle of the night. they simply exist. sometimes it's murkrow pecking out dead, dead, dead eyes. sometimes it's a corpse decaying while she's rooted to the spot, forced to watch as days go by in the mindscape and minutes tick down until her alarm goes off. 

she tilts her head. 

"i've seen some fucked up things, especially after avatars have gone through, but you got damn nasty with it. and was that you last week too? down in mauville's slums? the fucking floorboards took me six godsdamned hours." she frowns.

"so what's the deal, eh? those burritos doing something funny to you? 'cause i'm about to light them all on fire if it means i get a fuckin' break."

Alexandra Briarwood

☉

hum of a microwave. some type of shitty mexican food. quesadilla maybe? smells like beans and cheese. the shrill beep and as much as sylvie strains her ears, she can't hear anything on the other side. no silverware, no clatter of dishware, not nothing.

until suddenly the knob turns and she's being yanked roughly by the collar of her shirt and dragged across the threshold. the door meets her back in a way that makes her shoulders twinge and she winces, but that's accompanied by a toothy smile, carmine eyes lifting with amusement in the face of her aggressor's rage. 

"damn, take a girl to dinner first, why don't you?" she says and tugs on her pale wrist. 

"babes, i'm the only one who knows about that and that's 'cause of me. or did ya think all the bodies you enforcers leave behind just magically disappear when you're done with them?"

Alexandra Briarwood

☉

you can't wipe it all away. that's the price she pays for ensuring the aftermath is spotless. the stains linger on her instead. rarely does she ever have a moment where that copper taste isn't on the back of her tongue, or when her fingernails don't have traces of crusted blood. she's made a habit out of wearing black polish because of it. 

the voice on the other side sounds tired. or, well, fed up might be a better fit, but that only makes her bang harder. 

"who the fuck is milt? unless he's the one who shoved a hand up to its wrist down a garburator, i don't give a fuck about some twit named milt."

maybe she should be scared of an ex-rocket beast, but fear doesn't really live in sylvie's body. her parents must've been saving all of it for rory and aaron. 

Alexandra Briarwood

☉

not a whole lot can make sylvie drag her sorry ass down to slateport, but that's not even the tip of the iceberg for the work she's gone through to get to this damned woman's residence. 

a lot of people don't pay any attention to her. she likes it that way. and casual conversation, enough coffees brought to some of the low level grunts, and eventually she found someone willing to slip her the address of a certain woman who has, for the second time now, made her pull nearly three all-nighters, so basically it's third time's the charm, right?

pollux accompanies her. though she'd rather cassie, the runt of an espeon is a bit too recognizable, and she keeps as tight a knit as she can on her civilian persona. again, staying under the radar helps. she'd had to toss on a black hoodie because lex lives out in the middle of fucking nowhere for some reason, and in the worst part of nowhere to boot. 

sylvie bangs on the door with her fist and yells, "hey asshole, i got a bone to pick with you!"

Alexandra Briarwood

☉

rory goes quiet, but sylvie is too focused on making perfect cuts into the meat to notice. cassie, sensing they're about to eat, flicks one ear. sylvie's record player flicks on and soft kalosian music plays. a glance to the side from sylvie, two more flicks of cassie's ear, and the music is lowered to a respectable volume. 

the cat yawns and curls back up to sleep. 

"alright, dig in."

she takes another sip of her wine and starts helping herself to some of rory's pasta. "got any jobs lined up after graduation?"

aaron faust Rory Faust

☉

sylvie doesn't mind the companionship and they manage to finish the rest of the clean-up in a timely manner and without much fuss, thanks to elysium's larger form. he gorges himself and sputters a disappointed buhhhh, buhhhh at her when she explains there's nothing left for him to clean. 

she tucks him back into his ball and turns when oscar starts to praise her. never one to turn down an IOU, especially from someone of his stature within the organization, she gives him a smile. 

"sure, i'll let ya know if i need anything. and if you ever wanna test anything else out, i'm sure i've got a couple pokemon to spare."

oscar clayton

☉

if elysium melts or implodes, it wouldn't be the worst thing. though she'd rather not have to wade through sewage to search for another one to replace him on the crew. he really does make her clean-up a lot easier. 

but her fascination wins out and besides, brownie points with one of rocket's best are worth the paltry life of a grimer. 

she snorts and watches the fire spread over him like an oil slick. the sound he makes isn't pleasant and his face melts in on itself, eyes folding into mouth as he grasps uselessly at the space around him. and then he bubbles, stench rolling off of him in waves as he grows, and grows, and grows. 

one super-sized hand congeals and slams into the ground. a fissure yawns open, exposing a great big maw, and two white eyes roll to the surface. 

'muuuuuukkkkk,' he groans and then turns to shove more body parts into his mouth. 

"mm. nicely done, scientist," she says with a grin in oscar's direction. 

oscar clayton

☉