Scene #6958: Merry Snakesmas Eve

Owner	Pose
Guzma	TAPU VILLAGE, ULA'ULA ISLAND, ALOLA EVENING Tapu Village was once a prosperous village in the island of Ula'ula, until a supermarket was built nearby so the local 'god' Pokemon blew it up. Now, it's abandoned, barely visited at night, with all the activity inside the nearby Pokemon Center, where everyone who 'lives' here has gone for the night. Dilapidated and ruined buildings otherwise dot around it, showing wreckage. Guzma is pacing, with a small bag of groceries around his arm. He's not in the Pokemon Center, but alone, outsid in the ruins, only lit up by the lights of the nearby medical building. He's frustrated, hood up. Sylvi said a lot of things to him, and, honestly, they hit, hard. He has two Pokeballs around his waist, having left the rest in Po Town. Hopefully, once he's done pacing and getting frustrated, he can just go home and sleep.
Sylvi	Alone. All alone, out in the world. The ruins of life, a guttering flame. As Guzma paces, he sees a familiar pair of sports pants, diamonds of white on black, with a white top-band. Scrolling up is a familiar tattoo, a familiar necklace, four familiar braids of hair - two pink, two yellow, with dark eyeliner and white mascara surrounding. It's Plumeria! Wearing a smirk, of all things, arms crossed before her. She doesn't speak, and there's something subtly wrong with her. No, to Guzma it's shockingly wrong. Something is just off in a way that's not tangible, like a mirror image pawned off as the real thing. Something uncanny. Her yellow eyes look up at Guzma, unimpressed. Her yellow braids bob before her pink ones coming from the skull clips she wears.
Guzma	Guzma tilts from his pacing when someone familiar starts approaching him. Smirking. Arms crossed. That's her. "Plumeria? Aren't you supposed to be at home with the others? What's up?" Guzma tilts his head. There's a little bit of softness. He's fond of her, like a sister, and it can be felt. And then, his eyes comb over her, as he realizes something is wrong and she's not speaking. They stop at her hair. After several seconds, his expression turns into a fierce grimace. "Her hair's not blonde, dumbass. Turn back to your normal form." An Ultra Ball is grabbed off the belt. Guzma clicks it, releasing the Pokemon inside. A large red metal bug, with two large pincers, a pair of wings, and overall looking like a cyborg bug. Scizor. "/Now/."
Sylvi	'Plumeria' scoffs lightly, but doesn't respond. The thoughts hang in the air. Guzma gets suspicious, and her demeanor shifts - or is revealed - little smoothings at the edges, little fixes. Where Plumeria would have a few frayed ends where her hair was tied back, or there'd be little marks and dots and dimples, there isn't any. It's a Plumeria that's 'too perfect'. The smile turns laconic. "Really?" Comes Sylvi's unmasked voice. "Right to insults? You've got no sense of humor. For someone with no respect you sure have no other redeeming traits." Running like heated latex, Plumeria's face pinkens, her eyes losing definition with her lips, becoming pools of black and a rakish grin. Bits of pink drip down her face, and now she looks-- --Exactly like a Ditto, copying Plumeria - vapid dot-eyes and goofy smile and all. "Is this scarier? Not a trusted subordinate, but a real horror? Seriously. You compared me to this. I'm shocked. I bail you out, and all I get is disrespect." The Scizor comes out from the clearly 'special' ball, and Dittomeria stretches back, extending her hands up, lacing fingers, then rolling her head from side to side loosely, without any pops or cracks. In fact, it sounds and looks entirely boneless as her head lolls with the unnerving smile. "Make me, big man. Or is it Bug man? I can't keep it straight." With a laugh that starts low and works its way up to a full-body rocking back and forth while cackling, Plumeria begins to... Fill. Arms and legs, bone structure, stance, it all gets bigger, broader, wider, and soon Plumeria is easily seven feet tall and 'classically shredded'. Running her face-covering hand through her hair knocks away the two skull hairpins and turns pink and blond into platinum white. "I'm going to destroy you, Guzma. And at the end, you will thank me. And then you'll never disrespect me again." "Alright?" She doesn't blur so much as tear the air, the Route shattering underneath her lunge as her fingers claw out for Guzma's neck, to bear him right down into the ground - hard - and drag him for a dozen paces, bouncing off rocks and ruts. She totally ignores the Scizor. "I don't have to play by any rules. But you know what? I did my RESEARCH! I know that even if I near kill your stupid partner, you can just take him to a magic medicare - for free!" Sylvi roars with another belly laugh. "So I don't have to hold back at all!!!"
Guzma	Guzma's anger is /palpable/. "You impersonate /her/ and expect me to respect you? Give me a break!" Scizor stands up straight, leering at her, as she starts transforming into Dittomeria. Guzma takes a step back. It's terrifying, to him. "What the heck is wrong with you? No, seriously, were you-" He's about to say something really mean, and then she starts laughing low, and filling. Sylvi is /huge/, apparently. She says she's going to destroy Guzma. She tears through the air, making an earth-shattering sound as she moves that splits Guzma's ears and tells him he's in Danger. This isn't a Pokemon battle. This is close to life and death, even if she's unlikely to kill him. Sylvi grabs Guzma by the neck, smashes him into the ground, and starts dragging him. He's just a normal human, thudding hard and groaning loudly in pain. But he has a willpower, as he's scraped against rocks, already bleeding a little. "M-Metal Claw!" Scizor suddenly moves from its last location. It comes at Sylvi's side, one of its claws glowing with energy, and moves to just slash into her with razor-sharp pincers, superhuman ability clear. It's attempting to break Sylvi's grip and releaze Guzma, force her to focus on the Scizor. It makes a chittering sound as it does so, clearly upset.
Sylvi	"Have to wake you up somehow!" Comes the maniac laughter, the raw dominant mirth from the white-haired demititan. Her growl is raw, dripping with the unattended heaviness of her breath. She seethes, above Guzma, straddling him with her fingers around his neck. Scizor is there, and the Metal Claw comes in. She smiles down at Guzma, maniac. And doesn't move at all for the hit. The claw slashes in, pincers out, and she's forced off, her fingernails leaving furrows in his neck. She bounces once, landing on a low stance that transitions into a casual standing heartbeats after, licking pointed nails with a tongue that's juuuust too long to be comortably explainable as human. "Oh, now you get it. Your eyes open yet?" Sylvi wicks a slicked finger to her ear, pressing her finger in -- deeper and deeper, until she's three quarters of her pointer finger deep in her own skull. "Got your EARS cleared out??? Bahahahaha!" She pulls her finger out of her ear with a squelching 'pop', wiping it off on her top idly. "When you call yourself 'big' and 'bad', you're trying to join a club. You get judged. And so, when you treat me like one of your moronic goons, it makes me upset! I do you a favor, and you still pull that shit!" Pacing in a circle, giving Guzma the time he most likely requires to sit or stand up, Sylvi draws both arms up into a broad shrug, as if gesturing for a crowd. "I'm here to fix your shit, Guzma. Between the two of us, the titles of both 'Chosen One' and 'God of Destruction'?" Her smile is positively sharklike, eyes maddeningly wide. "Me. Both times. But you're not just insulting me! You're insulting the whole family by popping off and acting like a godsdamned child. So I'm being a kind, loving big sister, and taking away your toys." There's a dark purple bubbling from under Scizor as Sylvi grinds a heel into the ground, before an eruption of not one but a half-dozen earth-cracking vents of dark flame burst out. "And put your dumb ass into time out so you can think about what you've done."
Guzma	Sylvi is a mack truck. As the metal claw forces her to let him go and off, Guzma starts crawling backwards, trying to get away. As Sylvi does the ear trick, he's visibly horrified, and everything about her speech has him scared and confounded. When he gets the chance to fully sit up, starting to try and shakenly reach his feet, he can only say a few words. "You're absolutely insane, aren't you?!" He doesn't have more to say. He doesn't have a big badass speech. This is his first /real/ interaction with the world of Elites. Those fights before? Nothing. They weren't really targeted at him. It was war. It was heroes. This? This is someone willing to do whatever they can to teach him a lesson. As the flames spew out, Guzma instinctively calls out. "Dodge it!" Scizor moves, but not fast enough, as the flames graze its side, super-effective. Burns mar its frame, as Guzma grimaces. "Scizor, this is a battle to survive. Swords Dance into Bullet Punch." As soon as Guzma calls it out, entirely rehearsed, Scizor knows what to do. Glowing blue swords appear around it, as it takes a stance with its pincers. Nothing else happens. But before Sylvi could interrupt and hit it for this, it moves. Bullet Punch is /fast/. It moves to punch a pincer straight into her stomach, showing that Guzma shows her as an actual threat, and try and hurt her as badly as possible in one hit. It blurs with superhuman speed in the process, as if it had priority, and is confident it can do at least /some/ damage. Guzma needs it to.
Sylvi	Sylvi rolls her eyes at the shout of 'Dodge it', as Scizor weaves through bursts of strangely dark flame. "Look, Guzma, seriously." Sylvi notes, tapping her foot impatiently. "You can't just order something to dodge, they either dodge it or they don't. If you have to call it out, it's too late. Is this entire world soft? Is that where you got that brainless idea of yours?" "The cops that came to bust you had grenades and laser guns!" So Sylvi just walks towards Guzma, hands coming together to deliberately pop every joint and knuckle in her fingers of both hands. She gets through three by the time that the Swords Dance finishes. "I'm the sort of person who knows what they want." Scizor is clearly, pointedly faster than Sylvi. There's no contest. It blurs and thrums in, and the strike goes off point blank and clean -- clear through Sylvi's stomach. Looking down at the hole, she smirks. And pops another finger, finishing off the hand. The thin 'arm' of the scizor depresses into her mutilated chest, and something of an unknowable color that looks like spilled oil struck by a sunbeam just right in the darkness of nighttime. A vibrant rainbow-slick that hisses and pops upon contact with Scizor or the ground, and there's a lot of it. Sylvi's hands come up, one across Scizor's face, and one clutching the back of Scizor's head, and there's a soft 'tisk' sound that Guzma can't quite see the expression for. Instead of twisting, Sylvi shoves with the force of a hurricane directed entirely by two hands, aiming to remove Scizor from her mutilated stomach and place it in a better location. Like in a nearby ditch newly dappled with a crater.
Guzma	Guzma, surprisingly, doesn't banter with Sylvi. Or perhaps unsurprisingly, since Sylvi has the advantage and Guzma doesn't, and he knows it. As she starts cracking her knuckles, he knows Scizor will do real damage. Scizor isn't holding back. And so, it plunges a hole through Sylvi's stomach. But the rainbow-liquid burns into its claw, and it screeches in pain, As her hands come up, and grab its head, Scizor's eyes widen, but, luckily, she doesn't snap its neck. Instead, she throws it hard into a ditch. It's clear, now the arms and body aren't plunged inside Sylvi's stomach cavity, that the blood has actually melted some of the armor. It can be /repaired/, but it's pretty badly hurt - more than a normal Pokemon battle would ever do. But... Guzma grimaces. "Fine. Scizor, do your best." He stops short of saying 'I believe in you', knowing Sylvi will pick that apart. Scizor lifts itself back up, chittering in pain, and takes both claws. Cutting into an X, it moves to slash them into Sylvi's chest, trying to cut further into her, but it's not going as full force as last time. It's slower than the Bullet Punch, as well, and the pain is also slowing it.
Sylvi	"The world is a cruel, cold, uncaring place for people like you. For humans. But me?" She's laughing again, working on the fingers on her other hand. POP! "I'm beloved. Chosen, but not by something as weak as prophecy. By the pinnings of the world. Everything you know, everything you understand as immutable sings my name." POP! "The Midgarsormir may be my father, but did you ever think where that lineage goes?" Her footfalls cause low, resounding rumbles, as if her walking pace is the thump of tectonic plates shifting. It's rattling just standing on the ground. "Is this your best, Guzma? This is why you're weak. Your words. That thing?" She points at Scizor, as it takes stance for its attack. "That has promise. But what are you? You have no power. You've turned it into economics. It's so dissssgussstingly human." She finishes, the rattle and sussuration of her tongue even more pronounced in person. POP! The flash of the X-Cut lands cleanly again, empowered by Swords Dance, but the earthquake keeps rumbling. Furrows and cracks spider across the earth. Broad slices split across her front, leaking more of that oil-slick rainbow, that sizzles against even Scizor's steel form excruciatingly. "Issue a real order. You're running out of time. Do it. Tell your partner to kill me. This entire world is padded, a joke. You don't know what it's like to live, yet! To really be a god of destruction!" POP!
Guzma	Sylvi's coming forward, cracking those knuckings, shifting the world. Nearby, the people in the Pokemon Center have been watching, huddled inside, scared. Guzma should run. That's what his body has been telling him this whole fight. He should flee. Sylvi could /kill him/ if she wanted to. But he refuses. Not because of confidence. Not because of a heroic last stand. But because she'd follow him and just destroy everything he has. "...You're scary. But, I won't lose here. I /can't/ lose here." Sylvi can /tell/ this isn't a heroic cry out. The oily blood burns worse into Scizor, exposing bits of organic wiring that's very nerve-wracking to see. He'll have to get healed, but it's like somebody took a bug and installed it into a machine. He'll be fighting with a disadvantage for a while. "Scizor. Bullet Punch." Guzma says, closing his eyes, as Sylvi tells him to tell Scizor to kill her. He can't say those words exactly. But he can say something close. Something she can tell has the same meaning in this world. "Do it with /everything you have/!" Scizor chitters affirmatively, and powers up. It /overclocks/ itself, as it flies straight at Sylvi. It does not move for her stomach or chest, but instead, moving to crack straight into her jaw. This is going to /hurt/ Scizor to pull off, but, it'll be fine. Sylvi might not be, though.
Sylvi	"Of course you can lose. Shut the fuck up with that hero garbage." Sylvi snarls. She's mad, and the madness creeps into her voice. The sheer bubbling, boiling hatred for something. Something that isn't quite directed at Guzma - but it's obvious he's getting the heat from that fire. "You can lose because I'm trying and you're not. Weak. Weak! SAY IT!" She's about to pop her fifth finger on the second hand, about to do something. Scizor draws back and delivers an attack like a cyber-boxer, right across the jaw. It's an excellent way to stop whatever she was about to do. Sylvi's head snaps back, her jaw splintering audibly, and she spins-- And plants a foot, rolling through Guzma's Scizor-ward. Her face doesn't look human any more. Bones puncture through scales, and her skin is overlaid hexagons. Both eyes are ophidian slits, bloodshot. Her tongue forks at the end, whisking out to taste the air. "I told you to sssssssssssssssssay it." She hisses, fingers seizing Guzma by his lapel. "There's no line you don't crosssssssss. No harm isssssss forbidden. If you won't sssssay it..." His lapel is released, and she brings up her left hand, thumb pointedly moving to the knuckle of her pinky finger, pulling it slowly down, to pop audibly. "They won't hessssitate." She steps past Guzma, dripping slick oil-rainbow blood from her face, the hole in her stomach, and the X carved into her front, and starts wandering down the path. Her features - the wounds, the bloody holes - begin to mend and smooth, descale, and clear up, but the slow and ginger way she moves, as opposed to previously, tells enough of the story.
Guzma	Guzma still wasn't saying it good enough. Still wasn't saying what everyone wanted to hear. That's how it always is, isn't it? Guzma doesn't do the job right. He grinds his teeth, but he doesn't say it. He's not ready to say it, and he's not sure why. But it seems like an obstacle, as Sylvi's face is heavily inhuman, snakelike, and she grabs him by his lapel, holding him pinned. He's about to say something, visibly, when Sylvi releases him, and he swallows it back as she walks past him. He's not going to try her. Scizor is returned to the ball. Guzma returns to Po Town, shaken, but hiding his expression from his friends. They just think he's had another meltdown But he knows what he has to do now. He'll meditate on it. He can't hesitate, because they won't. Sylvi is living proof of it. So he has to get strong enough to be willing to play without /any/ rules. Otherwise... It's game over.