golisolation | 💀 MoM IC INBOX 💀

[the right thing to do is just shut down conflict and let him be, yes? the Pokemon now have their snacks, the task she set out to do done. anything else, she's not keen or quick or eloquent enough to maneuver, because she's a fighter first and a diplomat well after second. yes.

yet her eyebrow twitches.]

What. Do you want? Guzma! [she has stopped in a stomp, shoulders drawn up, turning on her heel and shouting back before she can stop herself. gods dammit.] I have other things to do besides you telling me how stupid I am all day!

[Well, that's certainly a reaction. Seems he's gotten under her skin, and the way his eyebrows shoot up certainly display his surprise at just how much he's dug into her. Maybe some amusement does twist into his expression—after all, he loves reactions. He loves attention, and she's giving it to him, instead of just leaving like most others would.

Scizor approaches Guzma, and he glances to him for a moment, but the mantis offers to take that basket with its broken handle that's only been held together by how tightly he's been gripping it. He hands it off, knowing Scizor isn't like Pinsir, and won't eat the whole damn thing in one sitting, before he turns his attention fully back to Lucina, strolling up to her with an inappropriate level of casualness.]

Maybe for you to prove you ain't.

[He shrugs his shoulders, his hands are in his pockets, and if she remains where she stopped, he'll be in her personal space, looking down at her with that smug grin.]

You wanna sell me on this shit. About you trying and not giving up, but you sure haven't convinced me you ain't nothin' but a sore loser.

[there is a very strong want to pinch his nose, the way she would Owain's or Cynthia's when they were getting too rowdy off on their Justice Cabbal adventures as kids. it just means her fingers get curled into her dress while she scowls back up at him.]

More's my shame, then. I don't know what you need to be convinced of anything, and I didn't come here to guess.

[He sure seems to be courting that fist with his face, huh? He doesn't back down or back off, just looming over her, with that arrogant and oppressive presence of his—well, it's not only his presence. After all, he's pretty ticked off, even if he's grinning at her, and so she might be feeling a bit odd with that nullification aura around him.]

I ain't asking you to guess. Ain't expecting you to, neither.

[He tilts his head, eyebrow raising.]

Show me you can think deeper about all this—that you ain't just grasping at the most optimistic sounding option there is. 'Cos, hate to break it to ya, Princess, but shit ain't always what it seems.

If even that numskull Darin can learn a thing or two from the big bad boss, I'm sure you can too.

[the uneasiness that comes from strength waning only makes her more impatient.]

Show you? In what way? [to stand here and let him browbeat her about how everything she believes is stupid and wrong? he better think twice.]

[It probably doesn't help having this behemoth of a man towering over her too, not that Lucina hasn't toppled bigger enemies, but... he shrugs his shoulders, pulling a hand from his pocket to poke his index finger just above her chest as he speaks.]

By not running away when you hear something you don't like, for one.

[He's really pushing his luck with this, but he can't help but being a total shithead when he's this riled—even if he's not actually going for a fight. It's just... how he is.]

[she is unmoving, save for the slight flare of her eyes. he just wants her to grab and throw him by his finger, doesn't he?

after a long beat:] Say your piece. And don't touch me.

[He does like to see how far he can push people. That flare to her eyes and that challenge doesn't do anything but knock him from his own course. And not in a good way, because now he's too tempted to push her, than to actually make his point. Oh how easily he can be distracted by his need for conflict.]

Or what?

[And as if to challenge her further, he aims to poke her again.]

[she steps back to avoid it.]

Or I leave. Because if you cannot be trusted to respect my wish for that much, then you can't be trusted to honor your intentions. Dialogue is not a one-way street.

[His eyebrows raise at her reaction, and maybe he shouldn't keep goading her. Maybe he shouldn't do a lot of things.]

Where was that self-control earlier when you tried to ditch, huh?

[He saw that fire in her eyes, he knew he was asking to be burned, yet she didn't pummel him when she could have.]

But fine, you want me to say my piece? Question everything, yo.

If you blindly jump into something, without looking at it from more than just your perspective, you're gonna miss the bigger picture. You're gonna miss who's really suffering, who actually needs help. Y'all of Aegis wanna be the good guys, y'all wanna be heroes, yet all I've seen is y'all acting no different than me: crushing anything you don't like, anything you don't agree with.

I'm the bad guy here, not you, right?

[she remains still as she can, despite impulse to puff up, something. because this isn't fair! were he talking down to somebody else in this fashion, it'd be unfair...

when he's said his piece, she huffs through her nose, still bristled.

she wants to spit out take your own advice in protest to his assumptions, but what good will it do her? she's only going to make things worse.

some olive branch this is.

instead of what she wants to do, she just keeps her glare fixed.]

...I hear you.

We'll see, won't we?

[He can see that struggle in her, how she bristles. And while she was able to control herself and not really push back, that didn't mean that what he was saying sunk in. Guzma is, and has been for a long time, a contradictory force of a man. While he's chosen to embrace being this negative entity, this "bad" guy, his aim has been something more positive in nature, even if it is dressed up as something else.

After all, he originally wanted to guide and mentor people in his society. He wanted to be a figure to nurture aspiring trainers, and even now, as he acts out, as he spreads chaos and destruction... he does so because he wants change. He wants the rejects and outcasts of society to have a place, to be valuable, to be seen as more than something to be swept under the rug.

But so too does he want to give them a place to hide and feel secure when there's no one else who would have them. Who would understand them. A means to vent their hurt and frustration without judgement, without peril. What he wished he had, but never did.

And as such? He will hold Aegis to a higher standard. If they truly wish to be who they claim to be, if they really wish to save and make things right, then he will push them. He will fight back, and he will make them question if they're doing this right, if their proof is as true as their words—because words are nothing but wind at the end of the day. Action is paramount.

Despite their little tiff and this whole mash of tempers, he does offer:]

Anything else, hm?

[she half-expects one more snide jab about her lack of perspective, some high-and-mighty virtue of hypocrisy, or some other broad and bullying jab. that it's lacking isn't very comforting, either; it just makes him that much harder to understand.

it's increasingly frustrating how confident he brags of knowing her aims, Aegis' output, the outcomes...and he can't. she refuses to accept that certainty.

faintly, she hears Mightyena offer a soft whine from nearby. after Guzma's prompt, she flickers her gaze over to the Pokemon, her expression still taut and mindfully restrained.]

...No. [true enough, even if it feels like a defeat. she turns away, starting off again.]

Farewell.

Figures.

[It's true, he doesn't know the full inner workings of Aegis or even the inner workings of the people within it, at least not most of them. However, he knows what he's seen, and he knows the patterns, and his paranoia fuels his judgments. Also, he's a bit of hypocrite. He'll talk all day and night about looking deeper than the surface, but at the same time, he has an increasingly hard time doing that for those who stand at the opposite end of his own ideals. He assumes and projects, and won't listen to the contrary.

For a moment, he thinks about saying something about her running away. That she's just giving up, but honestly? He's fine with her leaving. It's clear she herself doesn't have more to add, and at this point there isn't one. Dismissively, he shrugs his shoulders and turns his back to her as she heads out. Only looking over his shoulder to issue his own farewell:]

Later days, Princess.

[However, it's not just Guzma giving her a farewell, but so too do all the Pokémon (except Scizor and Pinsir). An obnoxious cacophony of chirps, trills, and barks, while the ones who have arms wave as well. However, she's also not leaving without a proper good-bye from Masquerain, who flits over to her, spinning and trilling his own name happily, before tapping her forehead with... where his mouth should be? Look, he's seen humans do that sort of thing as a sign of affection, and so he's just mimicking, ok!

Guzma doesn't look particularly pleased, but he's pointedly trying to ignore them as he busies himself with getting that basket back from Scizor, sorting through the berries that are there. He knows he can't stop his Pokémon from liking who they like, and he wouldn't try to. They're his partners, after all.]

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