☢

They were met with nothing but utter silence from her for the time. She knew the mark she had left on Tandor- and she didn’t have much of a care about what others thought in the long run. To her, what’s done is done, and nothing else mattered now. 

…. Though she was still bitter about being stopped. But… Urayne was happier than ever now- able to thrive without causing a fuss… Had people that cared for it. The one good thing to come out of all the pain she went through. That they went through.

After a moment more, she finally spoke up once again. “We did whatever was necessary to ensure Urayne’s survival… It’s not our fault that people happened to be in the wake of the destruction.” A shake of her head, and a gloved hand gripped tightly at the sleeve of her suit.

“Even then… I don’t see it as much of a loss- people are rotten, selfish creatures anyway.” That thought has not left her mind.

          they expected the silence. despite their anger, they weren’t devoid of sympathy for CURIE, nor urayne -- gods only knew what it’d be like to have your mind entwined with a pokémon’s, least of all one with such a grim history. running on survival mode was nothing foreign to them, either. they almost can’t blame her for committing any atrocities she deemed necessary for urayne’s ( and, by extension, her ) survival.

          almost.

          “ i’m sure there were ways of ensuring survival that didn’t involve casualties. ” they remark, deadpan as ever, only praying they could give off an air of nonchalance through their social awkwardness.

          valera’s eyebrows quirk upwards at her statement. CURIE wasn’t wrong. they wouldn’t deny their own misanthropy, nor pretend any reasons for the philosophy weren’t grounded in some justification. yet it still didn’t warrant the deaths of people who had nothing to do with it. ever curious, however, they press on with a cautious tone.

"... Why would I have wanted to stick around? We had our own agenda- and could not stray from the task at hand."

She tilted her head to the side, eyes narrowing for a moment beneath her mask. "I personally see no fault in making others feel something akin to the pain we had gone through. Consider it us making things even... In a sense."

          “ -- is that so ? ”

          Valera’s rage is distant, nothing but a ghost living in the minute trembles of clenched fists and furrowed brows. they’re too haunted by the images of rubble, smoke, blood and death; the rancid taste of metal on their tongue from the radiation bleeding into the ashen air.           revenge ? that’s what it was about ? their gloves bite into the festering burns of their arms, a grim reminder of the explosion at nuclear plant zeta. revenge is what left them pulling their colleagues from the wreckage. all those lives displaced and destroyed, for revenge ?

          it made sense, in an odd way -- but it didn’t make it justified.