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is there salvation for a woman on the brink? or merely stretches of time between an inciting action and the consequences?[break][break]

though it takes time, she finally recognizes officer weld's face. the gaunt lines in his face conjure up hazy memories of police banquets, of missed promotions, of wrongful deeds that had yet to bear fruit in the form of punishment. four years have now passed between cole being alive and cole being dead. in that time, officer weld has earned more medals on his chest than cole ever did. before cole's death, this particular police officer was a joke. nothing more than a stone to step upon when the siren song of a promotion sounded.[break][break]

cole is dead. his actions have gone unpunished. absinthe is the last thing that remains of him in this wretched world, and officer weld knows she is the only way to reset the equilibrium of karma.[break][break]

absinthe has accepted this fact. if she is to be reviled and feared for the rest of her remaining days, she will bear the marks proudly. she will not hide her scarlet letter.[break][break]

but june has not accepted the fate of her life. absinthe does not know why. the girl, only a week ago having traded verbal barbs with one another, stands up for absinthe when the chemist is ready to take the beating she has been owed. 'tis the nature of punishment—to take it with as much dignity as one can. june only staves off the inevitable.[break][break]

that's why absinthe is confused when she lifts her arm to hold onto june, and pulls herself back up from the heap she had been reduced to. her eyes narrow, her gaze hardens, but she does it regardless. "fine," she grits out as she takes to leaning onto the delivery girl for support.[break][break]

weld scoffs. it is a rotten sound. "well, since you want to do it like this," he begins, the preamble to cruelty. "i'll give you what you want."[break][break]

the cop pulls his radio to his lips. into the receiver, he bellows, "calling all available units to lurian pharmacy. i need backup—two suspects, armed and dangerous. i repeat, armed and dangerous."[break][break]

the receiver clicks. there is a garbled response, and weld drops his radio back into its holster, and stares. an act of defiance, certainly, and of jackassery. the place will be swarmed with pigs in seconds. absinthe uses her free hand to rub desperately at her temples as a deluge of pain shoots through her injured leg. "fuck. we need to get out of here."

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life is chaotic. the nature of the world is to begin perfect and descend further into madness. threads, once seared into submission, begin to fray at the ends with every eon that passes. seams come undone, stars explode into supernovae. many people, throughout the course of absinthe's life, have told her to destroy that which is wrong, as if that act of menace will prevent the wrongness from seeping back into every facet of life once more. howard slayte tells her to destroy the monkey when she sees it, her husband told her to destroy the parts of herself that were unsightly to gaze upon.[break][break]

once, she did what they told her to. she cut away the rotten pieces of her body with the exacting knife of a surgeon, seeking the perfection of a form loved by the only person she has ever cared about. she changed everything steeped in the darkness of her birth. she was brought into the world broken—she believed cole could make her whole.[break][break]

but, as the porcelain grew over her body, the cracks festered beneath. the darkness grew inside of her, fed by an umbilical cord connected to the hatred that yet clung to her heart. she nurtured the darkness, she prepared for its coming.[break][break]

and then it never came. it died inside of her, and the rot that once defined it seeped back into absinthe's body. the porcelain blackened and cracked. all at once, she wasn't perfect anymore—she never had been. she had only acted like she was.[break][break]

it was the tangled threads of life, slinking around her throat, the throat of a child she never had, and pulled.[break][break]

the child's destruction did not save her. it made her worse.[break][break]

absinthe’s gaze hardens, her breath rattling through the respirator, thick with memory and regret. destruction has always left her empty. she knows that now. entropy had left her battered, bruised, filled to the brim with scars. she tried to destroy the chaos, she tried to avoid it—the only time absinthe has come into contact with entropy and made it to the other side unscathed is when she has instead come to terms with it. when she has tried to guide it. destroying the fezandipiti will only bring ruin. yuina can’t see that, but absinthe does, and she won’t let the chance slip through her fingers.[break][break]

her hand rises slowly, a deliberate motion, her heart thrumming with determination and fury. at her side, asbestos—the frosmoth bound in toxic chains—flares her wings with a soft hiss.pale powder wafts through the air like a warning shot, shimmering with faint poison. absinthe’s voice is low, commanding, and edged with that same menace she keeps hidden beneath her mask.[break][break]

“enough.”[break][break]

asbestos obeys without hesitation. her wings beat once—twice—and the world is swallowed in a swirling gale. the fog thickens, turning into a torrent of snow, ice, and toxins. the battlefield is engulfed in a brutal blizzard, whiteout conditions that swallow yuina, her pokémon, and the fezandipiti in a freezing vortex. flakes whip through the air, tearing at skin and fur alike, as the temperature drops rapidly, the landscape buried beneath a sheet of cold.[break][break]

the intent is not just to freeze. it’s to halt, to overwhelm, to remind. remind yuina what it feels like to be powerless—just as absinthe has been powerless so many times before. a storm born of control, yet driven by chaos, a reflection of the world yuina wants to fight and the world absinthe longs to understand.[break][break]

“stop this,” absinthe snarls over the howl of the blizzard, her mask vibrating with the force of her words. “you think destroying it will set you free? it won’t. you’ll cut it down, and the rot will find its way into something else. you can’t fight it this way.”[break][break]

her boots crunch through the snow as she steps closer to yuina, unbothered by the frigid air slicing across her skin, no worse for wear as her mask filters out the toxins in asbesto's snow. the frosmoth flits above her, toxic chains dragging through the snow with an eerie hum. i’s scales continue to flutter down, lacing the wind with poison that’s subtle, but ever-present—a reminder that this storm is absinthe’s to command.[break][break]

"i don't give a shit about your freedom,” her voice is sharp, a scalpel cutting through the storm. “if you want to kill it, you will need to get through me.”

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there is a roaring in absinthe's ears as the cackling crescendos, as if the ghosts are mocking her. the sound builds and builds until it reaches a deafening peak, and then is silenced just as abruptly as it began. her breath hitches in her lungs and her eyes dart around the room wildly, seeking the source of the voice that whispered in her ear. forever.[break][break]

and then, an orb appears, gleaming like a pearlescent eye socket. it glows with an ethereal white-blue light that makes her heart hammer against her chest and her fingertips tingle with the overwhelming urge to reach out and touch. she doesn't—always cautious, particularly when faced with a glowing unknown substance—though, honestly, the prospect is tempting..[break][break]

instead, she watches evelyn reach out, and absinthe's eyes narrow as the other woman's hand passes through it, as if there's nothing there. "an illusion," she murmurs, and the words feel heavy on her tongue. "fed by the darkness." it's a trick perpetuated by the ghost pokemon, she's sure of it, and the mirth in their voices only serves to confirm her suspicions..[break][break]

a feeling of unease settles at the bottom of absinthe's stomach. with a glance toward the shattered statue, she wonders if there's a connection between the destroyed entei and the spirits' anger. now more than ever, this place feels like a prison, one that she desperately wants to claw her way out of. the fact that evelyn seems to be coming to the same conclusion only fuels her paranoia..[break][break]

"a blacephalon," she muses aloud, following evelyn's gaze to consider the similarities between this unnatural spectacle and the freak of nature she had read of in academic texts. "it tricks its targets, then uses their surprise to rob them of their vitality.".[break][break]

absinthe's head tilts, and she turns to survey the panicked gaggle of guests everywhere in the manor. she suddenly connects the dots in her head..[break][break]

"i imagine, in that scenario, every guest here is the target."

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absinthe's eyes track calpurnia's movements as she turns with a little wave, offering a raised hand in response. she doesn't smile. but she doesn't say anything, either, which means she's tolerable. absinthe doesn't have enough social skills to maintain relationships, so she's decided long ago that tolerable is the best she's going to get.[break][break]

furthermore, calpurnia saw absinthe shake. an embarrassing lapse in her composure, brought on by the knowledge of law enforcement in her vicinity, by the knee sent into her stomach. absinthe will never live it down.[break][break]

the mention of 'what she's looking for' is... interesting. there are too many variables to understand what it means, and she doesn't want to ask. absinthe isn't quite sure what she's looking for. purpose? revenge? something to give meaning to her suffering? all she knows is that she won't rest until she has it. all that matters is the end goal - even if she still has no clue what that is.[break][break]

"i'm sure i will," she says, in a voice that is somehow both emotionless and rueful. "after all, i'm not stopping until i do."[break][break]

absinthe returns the wave, only for her gaze to be caught on the woman's face. the corner of her mouth twitches once, twice. it would be inaccurate to call it a smile. it's more like a spasm, like when one is about to throw up. "goodbye."[break][break]

with that, off goes the chemist, disappearing into the crowd.

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absinthe moves to step forward, reaching out towards the bird—a rising, vicious hunger curling in her stomach. oh, how she yearns to study it, to cut it open and find out what makes it tick. her fingers stretch almost reflexively, claws opening up at her sides. she wants to hold it down. she wants to kill it.[break][break]

but—no. that's not the practical option. they'd be throwing away a perfect opportunity to study a rare creature swathed in the effects of the never rot. they'd be idiots if they didn't try to take it in, to figure out its physiology. it is clear that absinthe has not faced the brunt of this creature's power.[break][break]

the grass crunches beneath her boots as she wrenches herself to a rude stop. through the fog, she turns, and her gaze flares as she stares at yuina with an expression bordering on anger. a tense silence stretches between them, and absinthe's breath comes out in a low, threatening snarl.[break][break]

"are you out of your goddamn mind?" she hisses, voice low and dangerous. "why would we kill it when we could take it back with us? don't you see the opportunity we have right in front of us?"[break][break]

her head snaps back to look at the bird, wings extended out into the sky. her fingers flex at her side. the thought of its blood on her hands sends a shiver down her spine and a flare of hunger through her stomach, and she's reminded horribly of the first time she has ever killed something. she can still remember the animal pinned down on a black wax tray, can still remember the tear of its flesh between her claws.[break][break]

her breath comes out in a low snarl. "you really want to throw that away?"[break][break]

she pauses. her eyes narrow and find purchase on the figure through the fog—a fog that is now turning a noxious purple.

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a thrill of excitement runs up absinthe's spine. she steps forward, black boots crunching in the grass—if there's something out there, affected by the toxic chain, they need to have it. it could also be dangerous, of course, but the chance of discovery? the possibility of getting their hands on it, of prying it apart and figuring out how it ticks?[break][break]

absinthe doesn't think she's ever wanted anything more.[break][break]

at absinthe's side, the form of a frosmoth appears in a flash of white. asbestos blinks. the powder on her wings shakes loose, glittering in the pale morning light like dandruff. without turning her head, absinthe can see the moth's wings flit, and from them emanate tiny spectacles of poison.[break][break]

"let's find it," the chemist says with nonchalance, voice cool as the toxic chain around ruza's neck. in a couple of quick strides, the chemist has caught up to yuina's side, her hands tucked loosely in her pockets. her breath comes in a snarl, filtered through the respirator at the front of her gas mask, the only sound cutting through the silence other than the crunching grass. on her shoulder, asbestos and his wings, toxic scales fluttering to the ground around them.[break][break]

she pauses, eyes narrowing. up ahead, something silhouettes through the fog. beautiful, deadly, adorned with feathers and wings.[break][break]

absinthe's eyes spark with latent electricity. "is that...?"[break][break]

she's heard the tales. she's also been told she should try to kill the thing on sight.[break][break]

she doesn't want to.

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what the fuck is the point of this stupid fucking game.[break][break]

absinthe desperately wants a smoke. by now, she could have put out another batch of product, done something else, anything else, that would have gotten her closer to the next step in her overarching plan.[break][break]

she had hoped that maybe attending this event would show her something more about team rocket's plans, more about the tight knit ruling circle that currently she was simply adjacent to, but so far she has seen nothing other than a bunch of people who are inferior to her getting drunk and guessing at unimpressive large pumpkin pokemon weights.[break][break]

absinthe stares at the new example with simmering resentment, trying to force back any appearance of being anything other than mildly annoyed.[break][break]

she submits another slip.

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in the distance, through the fog, fallarbor town looms like the shadow of a headstone. it's silent, hardly bustling by any sense of the word, the only movement to be seen is a zubat flapping across the sky. absinthe trudges through the tall grass, eyes scanning the horizon. her breath comes in rasps, filtered through her gas mask as usual, and the air is cloying and humid as it hits the back of her throat.[break][break]

she's been telling herself she wants to find more examples of creatures affected by the never rot to study, that she's just curious, but there's a coil of fervor in her chest that reminds her too much of being back in school with animals pinned down on black wax dissection trays. it had ignited the bloodlust in her heart then, and she knows that working with live creatures will only be worse.[break][break]

the chemist swallows, breathes in deep, and keeps walking.[break][break]

up ahead, she can see the shape of yuina—vague, blurry through the fog. "has ruza picked up a scent yet?"

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the command, absolutely dripping in dry, agonizing boldness, seems to seep into the air around absinthe. there's a certain coldness to the voice that’s familiar. she doesnt remember how, doesnt remember why, but it ignites her deeply. a shiver, almost imperceptible, racks her spine as she turns around—it's better not to keep a man of such obvious importance waiting. her business here in oldale—a rather banal task—can wait.[break][break]

he looks like the devil. beautiful, but twisted beyond recognition by some grueling disease of the spirit. she knows the type instinctively; she sees it in the mirror every day.[break][break]

it's a small effort to paste a wry smirk along her lips, even if the effect is stunted by that strange mask of hers.[break][break]

"does yelling into the sky often work for you?" she says, cocking her hip, confident as she regards him. it's such an obvious ploy for attention, the question barely serves any purpose at all. any scientist in wartime knows to keep their heads down. absinthe is not so wise. "you are in luck, though. i have a doctorate."[break][break]

and, she's just insane enough to approach a man yelling into the ether about a need for scientists.[break][break]

"what science are you conducting?"

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there is a singular moment when everything spins out of control. for absinthe, it starts when the officer's fist connects with her cheekbone. pain blossoms across her face, bright and hot, and her vision goes blurry at the edges. she loses her grip on her cane and it clatters to the ground beside her, useless and forgotten.[break][break]

she's struggling to push herself up, her injured knee screaming in protest, when she hears a voice that makes her blood run cold. june sleigh, the woman who had helped her only weeks ago, is suddenly here, shouting at the officer, and—oh, fuck, she's going to get herself killed.[break][break]

absinthe tries to speak, to warn her off, but her jaw is throbbing and her tongue feels thick and heavy in her mouth. she manages a strangled groan, but it's not enough to stop june's tirade.[break][break]

as june turns to her, eyes wide with worry, absinthe finally manages to croak out a few words. "i'm not packing," she says, her voice rough and slurred. "just get out of here. leave me."[break][break]

she doesn't want june to see her like this, broken and bleeding on the ground. it's not absinthe. it's not what absinthe wants to look like.[break][break]

the officer looms over them, his expression obscured by his helmet, but absinthe can feel the menace rolling off of him in waves. "she's right, you know," he says to june, deceptively quiet. "not worth it. if you value yourself, you'll leave and forget you ever saw this."

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agreement settles between them, heavy in the night air like humidity before a storm. it is not formal, of course, and it is hardly concrete, yet there is an understanding. absinthe does not quite smile, but there is an interest in her eyes, crackling like the oxidization on the exposed ends of a battery.[break][break]

"i will look forward to it," she says curtly.[break][break]

maybe this, the two of them working together, could pose issues. however, absinthe finds interest elsewhere, too: in the moments of silence, shared. in the opportunity to solve an environmental anomaly that she is interested in, even if her goal, albeit hidden, directly clashes against yuina's. finding a way to weaponize environmental chemicals beyond human influence, rendering them a power of her will... she would be untouchable. there is, of course, it would be wrong to go against a new research partner, but team rocket yet has to discover the barrier they are incapable of crossing. the woman begins to walk back towards her bar.[break][break]

the chemist turns to yuina, speaking over her shoulder. almost as casual as an afterthought, she says, "you'd better keep in touch," before she disappears back into the neon light of the snake pit.

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a large part of absinthe would like to argue with the machine, to prove that it is nothing but a soulless scrap-metal husk that cannot and will not best her, that she is not its sister, and that it has no right to define what is and isn't 'pretty'. but then she remembers how it flung her boss onto the roof with what seemed like no effort at all. she peers up at said boss on the roof, and watches as he laments his thrown-around state.[break][break]

she tosses the flask into the washing machine's drum with a side-eye as deep as the mariana trench. "enjoy."[break][break]

she hopes the ghost or spirits or demons inhabiting this foul contraption get nice and fucked up.[break][break]

content that she has satiated the appliance, the chemist rises to her feet and dusts off her coat, then directs her eyes to the roof behind her. there, howard is still supine, lamenting the state of his life. after a moment, absinthe realizes with a start that he is not alone.[break][break]

there is a lawnmower throwing sparks next to him. it looks... aggressive? absinthe's brows knit together.[break][break]

"huh." in any other circumstance, absinthe would be annoyed, or maybe confused, or shocked. at this point, though, after having shared precious libations with a literal appliance, she finds herself incapable of mustering up any emotion other than apathy.[break][break]

this might just be the way the world is. sometimes ghosts possess appliances. in fact, she's pretty sure that's a pokemon, and that she should have figured this out much sooner. regardless, sometimes, all she can do is adapt.[break][break]

absinthe crosses her arms over her chest and prepares to watch, as she doesn't intend to help.[break][break]

"there's a lawnmower up there with you," absinthe informs howard in deadpan. "i'd offer you a flask to feed that one too, but my second flask is for me."[break][break]

absinthe removes the second flask from her coat, uncaps it, removes her mask, and takes one, long swig.

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