it will be some time yet before she runs into Isaac Merlo . two more days will pass in a blur and she will be able to count on two (one?) hands how long she's slept. the battle, as drawn as it's been, is a painful mental game. in the fight for the ultra deep sea, she'd been struck down almost immediately; the hazy aftermath are flashes, blinks of blood and trying and failing, failing, failing, death and cold all around her. 

too much hurting and too much pain and too much hating the way she left king behind. off to war, she'd marched, and back home had come a battered, bloody body. 

alive or half-dead, there will be no returning to his doorstep. 

her ribs hurt. the aching thrumming of her heart makes her stop, rub aggravatedly against the exhausted tears blurring her vision. she shivers, swallows her grief whole and slips along marked trails, out to the open expanse of the beach's shore. 

melusine hisses lowly, but freya doesn't look up. she knows it's a roaring moon by the sound of its wings. 

"this is league territory. i suggest you leave," she calls as she emerges from the brush, bow at her side and metal quiver swinging at her hip. 

fern delaney jayden cross

sygna

☉

her kommo-o roam the opposite shores, dredging lines in the sand to stop the enemy from advancing. flanked by tyrantrum, a fortress of gnashing teeth and thick defenses. here, though, there is a different strength mustered through confidence and will and the heavy breaths of the beast behind her. 

melusine's wings fan, flaring on either side of freya's small frame. 

long time, no see. the mask rings a bell - a flash of ghastly scales, shards of ice piercing one of the last remnants she has of her mother. her fingers brush against her quiver, withdrawing an arrow glistening purple. 

"good," she says. "i was hoping you'd put up a fight."

pointed stones blast up in a semi-circle to the rocket's right by melusine's slamming paw and to his left flies an arrow led by the calculation of human instinct. 

fern delaney jayden cross

sygna
roaring moon used stone edge
toxic arrow

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silver strokes onto the canvas. a soft hand, weathered by age, turns and the brush is an extension of her. it dips into white, still bleeding silver, and from the shoulders draped in glittering wings tumbles starlight. gray underscores shadows, shaping braids, and then up further a new, clean brush molds full cream-colored cheeks and fuller golden eyes.

the moon blankets her in a halo. she exists in an emptied space, abandoned by warmth.

her knees shift, compensating for the rumbling in the ground, an archer's eyes widening as a snapping, flashing arc of light lingers briefly where her adversary had just been standing.

flames race towards her and her sygna suit cape snaps around her, taking the excess that glances off of melusine's protective step forward. a low hiss under her breath is an order given and melusine's throat swells; great torrents of water explode past sharp teeth to combat the heat. 

"cheap parlor tricks? and i thought you said i was theatrical."

fern delaney jayden cross

roaring moon uses hydro cannon

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she hadn't been imagining it. and this is no act of forgery with a pokemon hidden somewhere. no, freya realizes with dread - she's in the presence of another rocket avatar. the electricity sweeps across the sand, crackling around the metal of her sygna suit. without infinity energy to power it, her legs buckle. 

she falls to one knee as melusine's fanned wings shudder and shake against the paralysis. 

their roaring moon races towards freya and melusine shrieks, talons furrowing into the sand. her movement is slight, muscles still spasming, but the earth churns for her nonetheless. 

a stone edge bursts from the ground to slow the dragon down while freya reaches painstakingly for another pokeball. 

fern delaney

☉

many of her dragons patrol the shores and the skies and even some of the league's temporary encampments. most of them are salamence. so those on her hip fill more mundane tasks, offer her flexibility in battle, and she is thankful she had the foresight to prepare for something like this as the heavy, gnashing jaw, and violent red scales shove from her pokeball. 

killian's bulk tanks the massive discharge, though not without stumbling. she roars in pain, tail swinging in outrage, and freya takes a couple of steps back, trying to make sense of what she is seeing. 

at first, she thinks the tapu koko in the league's custody has abandoned them, but she has seen that koko before. and this one is a shade. 

that does not make it any less formidable.

"killian - break." the tyrantrum bellows and the precipice fern finds themselves perched upon begins to crack. ancient power thrums from the earth, erupting in a sudden display of force. and melusine makes use of the electric terrain, fangs sporting their own thunder as she claws towards her shiny counterpart. 

"i don't want to fight you, avatar. i have more important things to do."

fern delaney jayden cross

☉