[FIN] Not My Human

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

The man before her threw back his head and laughed; a laugh that echoed down the mostly empty alleyway. "When was I ever known for my manners? Also, I know you're right here, but that's no guarantee no one else is. Pokemon are capable of all sorts of tricks, aren't they?" He began to count them off on his fingers.

"Transformations, illusions, mimicking human sounds and speech, telepathy...how much of a stretch is it to guess at hypnosis, mental manipulation, brainwashing, or possession?" Izaya tsked and shook his head, wagging a finger at her. "No, no...I know my beloved humans well enough to recognize an impostor when I see one. Already you've attempted to modify a body you're not used to." He gestured at his own hair to reference the new lack of hers. "Or are you still going to try to convince me I'm wrong?"

He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, looking over the woman before him as if he wasn't quite sure what to make of her. "I'll admit my knowledge of Faleen - 'you', if you prefer - is very limited. But she's still undoubtedly human and I love my humans." Crimson eyes narrowed briefly. "And there's absolutely no way I'd ever let anyone else, pokemon or otherwise, take them away from me. They're mine and I don't like sharing."

"May I?" Without waiting for permission, he perched himself on an unclaimed edge of the trashed couch. "I know you're inside her head. That's how you try to keep convincing everyone you're her despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. But the insignificant details that cloud the minds of humans like the use of sentimental names or personal knowledge aren't enough to fool everyone. Like Faleen's most precious friends, who know her better than anyone, I imagine." His gaze flickered to where he'd last seen Froakie on the window sill.

"They seem to agree with me in thinking you're not who you say you are. And I'm someone experienced in the art of passing myself off as people I'm not, so I know a thing or two about covering tracks. You seem to be enjoying yourself far too much to have done this often before. You're clever with some things - no doubt with the aid of Faleen's high intelligence - but you're ridiculously sloppy and careless in your performance of others."

He waved a hand, as if casting that matter aside. "I may not know Faleen; certainly not as well as you must now. But she didn't know me in all aspects because I didn't let her. A mistake that may have caused this mess, but can also now, perhaps, help fix it. Because that means you don't know me as well as you think you might, either." Izaya's grin turned lazy and his smile didn't reach his eyes, contrasting darkly with the emotion they forecast. There was no longer any effort put into guarding the unbridled loathing in those crimson orbs. "It's easy to make me smile. It's a lot harder to wipe it off my face."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Faleen remained quiet while Izaya spoke, though there was a definite arch to her eyebrows, her eyes wide in a very clear and attentive interest as he went through his hypothesis and explanations.
A soft smile crossed her lips, she had to admit she was amused by this, and somewhat impressed... not seriously so, he had no other reason for coming out here but for personal gain, that much she knew... still it made her curious just how far he was willing to go.

"You jumped to pokemon pretty quickly, Have you ever heard of a pokemon that could really take over a human's mind? Because I can't... really recall of any." she lifted a finger "Or is it so hard to believe that this is who I've always really been, and that I'm sick of everything, give me any reason why I should care about Team Rocket? What have I gotten out of it? huh?"

Still she paused, observing Izaya for a few seconds "You've always been so smart though, Its a pity you don't know how to always use that smarts." she shrugged, reaching her hands up to place them on the back of her head as she strolled closer to Izaya "So what exactly makes me not Faleen then? If we're saying you're right- that is. A person is made of their memories and experiences, and if they're all here? Whats to say that this isn't who I am Izaya? People can change, can't they? We're influenced by change, how is this change not me?"

A dry laugh met the women's tone and she leaned forward slightly toward him and where he sat on the couch "Friends?! oh cute Izaya, but anyone I might have considered a friend, or more, back stabbed, abandoned and gave up on me. I don't have any friends."
The agent placed a gloved hand on her chest, her face growing a little more tense before softening "What could you... possibly do to stop me if that's the case? So you say that something is in here with me. Feeling everything Faleen feels. Like this deep deep deep biting anger for everything." She half growled "What is it that you think you have an advantage over? Because you're confident that I don't know something about you? Maybe there are a few things you should know about me before you try poking around? Here, I'll give you some insight for free."
she stepped closer
"You are the last person that I will ever let betray me again, you are the final reason I will never trust anyone again, I hate more then anything that you couldn't get your head out of your a** for long enough to see what I've done for you. I hate that I wanted to trust you, I hate that I once thought we could work together, I hate that you think I belong to you, and most of all, I hate that a part of me still feels sad over losing you."
She took another step forward, one hand reaching out toward him
"I want you dead... So... badly."  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

He shrugged at the first question posed to him. "I don't know. I read about a Mewtwo doing that once with a nurse in the Kanto region, I think, but I couldn't know for sure. I wasn't there. I suppose it depends on your idea of 'taking over a human's mind'. But what else could it be? A ghost? Pokemon are the biggest threat to humans because humans may decide pokemon are enough for them so they don't need each other anymore. Now that they say they can hear pokemon speak as if they were human, the anthropomorphism of them is worse than ever. Why wouldn't it be a pokemon? I've long since considered them an enemy." The questions about things being hard to believe were less easy to reply to. He mulled them over as he listened to her continued to speak, watching him.

"Change happens through instigation," he answered slowly. Maybe the real Faleen had come out to play after all. His smile was threatening to drop into a scowl. "From the smallest changes like wanting to sing or shave your head to larger ones like turning your back on all you've worked for for the past several years of your life - all of those must have had catalysts. I don't mean just one event for all those changes, either. With humans, natural change is gradual. With you, it seemed to happen after that one explosion in the labs. That's why I don't think this is who you are. There are very, very few things that could have served as the reason for all those changes at once, so forgive me for my skepticism, but I'm not buying that it's only Faleen I'm talking to just now."

That did it. The mention of 'friends' was too heavy a word to be dropped without the weight of that false smile coming crashing down along a good deal of Izaya's composure. "Pokemon," he managed to utter through gritted teeth. "By your 'friends', I meant your pokemon. Like Umbreon. The one that caused you to nearly kill Rosie after it died. Since this whole 'Arceus Egg' rumor has been going around, I figured you'd be stuck to your pokemon more than ever." Again he looked thoughtfully to the Froakie on the window sill. "And with the human interactions you've had, why wouldn't you? Are you telling me you don't even consider your pokemon to be your friends? Surely they haven't back-stabbed, abandoned, or given up on you. I thought they were the only ones left you relied on and whole-heartedly trusted."

He put a hand to his temples and massaged them with a wearied expression. "She - you - must have become worn down enough to let whatever it was in. That one agent mentioned you'd been acting weird since our partnership was annulled. Perhaps I had a hand in causing you to wear down. I won't deny responsibility there," Izaya said. "So you were lonely. Hurting. Wanted someone to understand you, share in your pain, take revenge for you. Take over with the vigor you no longer have because you're too tired. Let them do pretty much whatever they want because you just don't care anymore. You've become weak-willed and weak-minded. Is that it?"

The informant held up an index finger. "But not when it comes to me. Your loathing of me brings you back. It's just like that suicidal teenage girl I once met who changed her mind about wanting to live because she found a reason in hating and wanting to kill me. The fact that I'm alive to torment and remind you about the past instead of being dead like you want is the reason you haven't yet completely given in to whatever that other thing is and withdrawn inside yourself. It's why you're here, now, talking to me. This is the real Faleen; the one I set out to find."

He had been observing her gauntlets and her glistening coat with some interest. Whatever they could do, he was sure it was enhanced from what a normal human was capable of. She was most likely to have some new technology or gadget on her that she had thought up and taken from the labs. He knew better than to make gambles against unknown elements such as those.

"I know what you've done for me," he said with a straight face. "You may not believe it because I haven't expressed my gratitude, but I know. I didn't want you to get any closer or do anything more, so I pretended it meant nothing to me. I only meant to make it stop; not to push you away." Izaya's shoulders drooped slightly as he exhaled, but he didn't move when Faleen reached out toward him. When he spoke again, it was faltering and just barely loud enough to be audible. "I didn't want to be your friend. I don't want to be anyone's friend. Not if being friends gets friends killed."  

[Blood_Goddess]

Since Izaya had not made a move when Faleen reached out to him, he would find her gloved hand on the side of his neck, her fingers sliding back to where his neck and head met.
She seemed rather impressed by this, her eyes widening only for a second before a pleased grin flashed over her lips.
"Consider pokemon an enemy? Really?" she mused shifting toward him a little and tilting her head "With what humans are capable of? I would say humans are something to be feared."

Though she listened to Izaya, a growing smile spread over her face, and before too long she was shaking in fits of silent laughter, the more he went the more she couldn't seem to contain the amusement
"Geeze! You really don't know anything about me do you!" She burst out finally, her grip at the back of his neck tightening slightly.
"I don't think I've ever made a secret that Pokemon have never been friends, and on top of that, You were never even expected to be a friend either! just someone to work well with! You know a partner?!"
Again the women laughed, almost doubling over "Do you even listen to yourself sometimes? You have to be the most self absorbed creature I've ever come into contact with, and whats even more FUNNY is that you actually believe all of this stuff you're saying! AAAHAHAHAHA!!"

Tears were starting to form in her eyes from how hard she was laughing, reaching a hand up to brush them away she took a few deep breaths. "I'll tell you what, weakness or not, things are the way they are. and maybe being a friend wouldn't have got you killed. but whatever the case, its not going to save you today~ So I guess... not being friends, is ganna get you killed after all~"  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Izaya kept his crimson eyes trained on Faleen though a great deal of his mental attention was drawn to her fingers against his neck. He couldn't help swallowing. His mouth had gotten very dry.

"I never said humans are not to be feared. They're a force to be reckoned with, certainly. In fact, I believe them to be superior to pokemon." His brows furrowed with confusion as she began to laugh at him, talking about friends and friendship. He didn't understand. This was not information he had ever really been an expert on. Not before Aila and certainly not after. Not with Jerome. Nor Xander. Nor Zacharie. Not with Adam. And certainly not Faleen. What was friendship? What kind of relationships did he have with these people, other than trying to make it anything but that?

He chuckled softly along with her laughter, but his heart wasn't in it. "I'll admit I'm self-absorbed. But I'll also admit I don't know much about what friendship is usually thought to be. I don't know what the difference between being friends and being partners is, or even being friends and being roommates. I don't know how to get along with people. All I know is that if I don't have people hating or loathing me, or at the very least, disliking me, then they're too close for comfort. Because I never know what the relationship could grow into from there."

At the threat of death, Izaya smiled bitterly. "I think you misunderstood. It's not me I was worried about getting killed. It's you. Aila is dead because she called me her friend. At least I don't have to watch you die for the same reason."

He shrugged. "It's true; I'm a coward by nature, not a martyr or hero. People have pointed that out to me countless times before and I've acknowledged it with the response that I like that trait of mine. I prefer to live if I can rather than die for some pointless cause, altruistic reasons or false beliefs. Even now, I'd much rather try to run away or fight a desperate battle I know I'd lose against you than just stand here. But while I can still use my words, I will, so if you're going to shut me up, you might want to silence me as soon as possible."

His body was tense under her fingers and his quickening heart was pumping adrenaline along with the blood through his veins. Even if his expression disguised it, details such as the sweat that beaded at his temples hinted at the man's true level of fear. "Since Agent Aila gave her life for mine, I've been seeking a way to repay her as best as I know how. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, repaying a debt of one's life is not something I'm accustomed to doing, so I had no idea what to do, how to act, or where to start. I thought at first that I deserved to die, so I tried to anger Agent Asch into killing me. I might have succeeded, too, had you not intervened. You saw what I was doing, and as if you hadn't already hadn't earned my respect before, you certainly did then. You saw through me, a fact that I both admired and detested.

"Since then, I had to be very careful to keep my guard up around you. You interested me, sure, but it would have been nearly impossible to look more into someone like you without you getting suspicious and wanting to look more into me in turn. That's why I had to be cautious and bide my time. The more I tried to figure out about you, though, the more I got confused. I know getting assigned to me wasn't your choice, but after the Rocket who paired us together left, I imagine it wouldn't have been that difficult to ask for a reassessment of his decision. Instead, you persisted. Even after tricking you with my Zoroark and getting arrested, even after the trade with Lance and the other traitors, you still tried to help me. Why?" he wanted to know. "What is that, Faleen? Isn't that friendship?

"I've tried, I really have, but I've never been able to figure you out. You're so reclusive and lonely, especially if what you say about your pokemon not being your friends is true. Maybe you considered your Umbreon to be your partner instead of your friend, but from how I saw you react to its death, 'partnership' must at least have some sentimental value to you; some place in your heart. So please, even if it's a last request of mine - what's the difference between that and friendship?"  

[Blood_Goddess]

Though she still had light fits of chuckles, the Agent paused, putting her free hand on her hip, the fingers of the other hands shifting to pointedly play with the back of Izaya's hair.
"... well I'll give you that, if you put it like that I guess I can't really tell you at all what the difference is. But a part of me wonders why it really matters that much you know? I guess you went and took a working partnership, a meant to an end to become something functional for the sake of survival and effectiveness and you turned it into something... overly complicated?"
Again she shrugged "I think at this point it doesn't really matter now does it. To you there seemed to be no difference between respect and friendship."

She snickered lightly, shaking her shaved head "All of this sounds like a final confession to me you know. it might as well be. You know I'm not going to let you walk out of here alive tonight."

She tilted her head "Though, I think you've gotten enough out for one night, you sure do take a whole lot out of a person."
She could see the fear on him, and wasn't making it a secret that she noticed it, Glancing over him with a certain enjoyment.
"I know the kill word to your chip~ being one of the head Agents on your project I only need to utter a simple code word and plop~ you're dead.
Before that happens though, I guess I wouldn't mind reliving some of your own curiosity. so go ahead, I'll give you one question, only one, that I will answer completely honestly."  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

The tickling sensation of his hair at the back of his head being played with made the rest of it stand on end. "It wasn't a means to my end," he sighed. "Unless by 'end' you mean my death. After you stopped Asch from killing me, I only had two main goals in mind - staying alive and repaying my debt to Aila. To fail at either would have been a waste of the second chance she had given me."

He attempted to swallow the hard lump forming in his throat. It was making it difficult to keep his voice steady while speaking. "Of course I know there's a difference between respect and friendship. You can respect an enemy as well as a friend. You don't have to be amicable toward someone to admire them. You can loathe them with every fiber of your being and still appreciate some aspect of their person."

The man tried to control his rapid-fire pulse, but it continued to thump painfully against his chest harder than ever. He wasn't smiling anymore and his mask of calm was slipping. His mouth opened to speak when she offered him to ask a question, but nothing came out. Izaya wet his lips and tried again. He felt so pathetic; helpless and weak. So this is what it all came down to, was it?

His mind frantically ran through several inquiries as if this were some riddle and he only had to find the right answer in order to go free. In the end, though, he closed his eyes to tell his inner self to shut up. There was no way out of this, so stop trying so hard. She probably anticipated that he would try to say something to save himself, anyway. It was no use. He was breathing so hard, now, he could barely concentrate. Maybe he was involuntarily hyperventilating out of panic.

"Will..." He paused, trying to get a grip. Dear Arceus, now was not the time for his voice to crack. "Will you be happy once you kill me?" He opened his eyes again and he tried to smile but it was one of the hardest and most painful things he'd ever done. Damn it, he didn't need to show weakness; now less than ever. But he could already taste the few tears that had overflowed when he looked at her again.  

[Blood_Goddess]

there was a great measure of fascination on Faleen's face now, her other hand was moved from her hip to slide up over the other side of Izaya's neck.
"That's a look of surrender if I've ever seen one." Tilting her head lightly the former blond smiled almost gently at him.
"Maybe there were different ideas of respect then? becasue while you say you respected Faleen, you never seemed to show it, Now exactly how is that respect? ah- well not that it much matters anymore anyway."

Her eyes widened lightly, a look of clear surprise at the question he posed. "... interesting." her voice was low, as is speaking to herself.
"Well, I'm already happy really. But to answer the real question you're asking; no. I'll probably never be happy."

Her sweet smile returned. "Good bye Izaya Orihara~"

The words were on the tip of her tongue, with every intention of saying it the engineer opened her mouth, a smirk crawling over her lips, she was curious how he would die? would it be messy? Probably not, it was designed to be instant, it was designed to be quiet and unassuming. It was likely that Izaya wouldn't even know what hit him.
Would he feel anything in that split second? What would his face look like? how would he fall? Should she catch him?

The first noise that came out of Faleen's mouth was followed with an abrupt choking noise and a grunt, then silence.
The fingers on Izaya's neck suddenly tightened around his skin, as the women suddenly buckled forward, a choking sound once more followed by a trembling silence, Faleen's entire body straining against something.

Gloves hands abruptly left Izaya's neck, clasping at her face, her nose now spilling blood down her lower face as she choked again.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

I didn't need to show it to have it, he thought silently in response to the question he'd been posed. Whoever it was talk to him - since it probably wasn't Faleen now judging by the reference to herself in third person - she was right. It didn't matter anymore.

Happy...they said they were happy. That was good, right? His death wouldn't be for nothing after all. And yet the answer to the 'real' question he had asked - whatever that meant - was no? Was he to surmise that the happy one was the other being? He had to admit that the claim that she would never be happy sounded a lot more characteristic of the Faleen he knew. At least not now, now that she seemed to have given up on everything. His brows furrowed in distress. "Faleen - " The return of that disturbingly sweet smile caused him to stop short.

He was just about finished, heart perhaps ready to explode in his chest from the stress if nothing else, he noticed something peculiar. In what he was sure were the last minutes of his life, he saw the expression on the ex-agent's face and realized something. It was familiar because...well, wasn't that the same sort of look, that hunger, that he himself must have woren when he anticipated seeing how someone would react to a certain situation? Peculiar. For a moment, it was like starting back into a mirror's reflection, but of his past self. Maybe it was a variation on one's life flashing before their eyes.

It would have been ironic, words being his greatest weapon for most of his life, yet a single word being the key to his ultimate destruction. The word never reached his ears, though. He didn't die. Instead, Faleen seemed to be. She began to choke which bewildered Izaya since he was the one whose neck was in her grip. He was reminded of this sharply as that grip tightened, causing him to cough a couple of times himself, but he automatically braced his arms to support Faleen if she needed it when she buckled forward.

He felt the tense strain on her body and his eyes widened as he finally guessed at what might have been happening. By the time she let go of his throat, he took out Celty's dusk ball and released the Spiritomb before darting to the woman's side. "Faleen? Faleen! Don't you dare die on me now, damn it!" he shouted, his voice breaking for certain this time. He was too concerned about other matters to care, however. The blood trickling from her nose had him as panicked as ever, but for completely different reasons. "Didn't I just tell you you're not allowed to die because of me?! This is the worst way to spite someone who just divulged to you their deepest fear!"

His head whipped toward Celty, who hovered at his shoulder, desperately to get a grasp of what was going on. "Celty, try using Hypnosis on her! No time to explain. This is important!" Recognizing the direness of the situation, the Spiritomb nodded with determination and focused a Hypnosis attack on the bleeding human. What her trainer reasoned was that if Faleen was unconscious - both she and whatever was controlling that body of hers - then the ex-agent wouldn't have to put a strain on herself to keep her own voice from uttering that fatal trigger word.  

[Blood_Goddess]

The moment Celty was called out there was a shift in the darkness. Izaya might have gotten his commands in, but before any kind of attack could be used against Faleen, for good intentions of not, a gleaming black and Purple form was streaking forward, placing its large fluffy mass between Faleen and all others in the ally.

By this point Faleen had stopped making noise all together, a deep frown on her features and a look down to her blood covered hands with an expression fulled with curiosity more than anything else.

She was roughly moved out of the way from the Spiritomb, looking up to see Zoroark hunkered by her side and eyeing the other Pokemon with intent to attack
the shiny Pokemon growled in her usual haunting hollow tones.

Faleen, having fallen to her knees in the Pokemon's rough treatment let out a laugh, blowing more blood out of her nose that splattered along the ground "You might want to listen to that one Celty," She wiped more blood off of her face as she pushed herself to her feet, looking over at the man who was supposed to be dead by now.
"... Now that was interesting..." She muttered her brow furrowing in thought.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

The Spiritomb stopped short when it recognized the Zoroark. Izaya flinched, his mouth set in a grim line, frowning as he looked from Faleen to her pokemon and back again.

Celty wanted to know. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen Izaya look so distressed before. It was really weirding her out, making it hard to concentrate on what might have happened or was happening to his ex-partner.

Obviously, though, Faleen's condition was the highest priority to her trainer at the moment. Team Rocket didn't really concern Celty and she doubted Izaya cared too much about the organization either, but she didn't want to act rashly. If Team Rocket went down, so did Izaya, traitor or not.

Celty's attention was drawn abruptly to Faleen's words. She could understand pokemon speech? What strange new power was this? Perhaps that Arceus Egg thing that Namie had mentioned?

Izaya's eyes narrowed again when Faleen - or whatever was speaking through her - addressed his Spiritomb. Evidently, Celty had been told to stand down for some reason or other by her fellow Dark-type. This was getting nowhere. "It's alright. Nevermind," he told his pokemon, returning her to her dusk ball. Taking one more look at the other ex-Rocket, he said, "This isn't over." Then, turning on his heel, he ran back the way he had come, racing through the streets and back alleys as fast as he could.

Obviously the thing wanted to kill him. Faleen herself must have stopped that, but at cost to her own body. Going against herself might have even caused damage to her brain. Izaya wasn't sure how the trigger word meant to end him worked, but he was betting that there was a certain range out of which it wouldn't work. It might even have been his range of hearing. Whatever the case, the sooner he got out of said range, the sooner Faleen could stop fighting herself to keep him alive.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Faleen let out a laugh at Celty's words "Uhhhh well PROBABLY" She added with another laugh "Probably not going to though." She added with another laugh, reaching out to wipe her blood covered glove on Zoroark to try and clean it off a little more.

Zoroark tensed, but otherwise did nothing.

"Oh?" Faleen hummed, watching Izaya suddenly turn and take off running. Faleen leaned back, busting out in a full laugh "AH YOU CAN BE SMART SOMETIMES!" Faleen called to the fleeing Izaya, folding her arms she grinned watching him go "You're right about that Orihara... I'm far, far from over."

Now left alone in the ally with Zoroark, and the quickly approaching Froakie, Faleen let out a thoughtful hum, reaching up to touch her nose again.
"That is... really interesting." she continued, turning to make he way calming down the other end of the ally.