[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]"C'mon. Even I'm not that stupid."[break][break]

He was. He'd love to say that this was all according to plan, that he was trying to martyr himself for the good people of Hoenn or sneak some invaluable intel out of an evil monkey. Maybe he could justify that retroactively. However, he hadn't been thinking of any of that. All he knew was that the people he cared for were under lock and key, and the sister he adored above all was being bullied by some peanut-shaped asshole.[break][break]

The Megalopians may have sealed away his legendary powers, but they couldn't stop the heart of the Liberator from beating inside Isaac.[break][break]

" 'Sides, look on the bright side. They didn't kill me." It was a hell of a silver lining to cling to, but leave it to Isaac to find it where it persisted. "Left all my worky bits intact, too. Looks like they need us, one way or another." They didn't need the poor, unfortunate soul who they pushed through the bars like a sieve. But one was an exception. Two? That was a pattern.[break][break]

It seemed the Megalopians wouldn't let suicide be an option.

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]"'Cause I've got the strongest, bravest kid in the world to pick me up after I fall."

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]"There you go."[break][break]

A soft, reassuring whisper. Isaac knew the louder he was, the more strain he'd put on himself. The more strain he put on himself, the more pain he put himself through. The last thing he needed was to cough up blood in front of someone who was already trying her hardest to keep it together for him.[break][break]

"I'm lucky, y'know."

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]"Ah c'mon. Thought you missed the sound of my voice." He tried to snicker, only for his compressed chest to leave him in a coughing fit. Each sharp pain that shot through his ribs reminded him why this had been such a bad idea. "Okay, okay, you're right," he conceded, before promptly hushing his butt.[break][break]

He did, however, accept her help. Shifting awkwardly, braced her shoulder, Isaac was eventually able to contort himself into something resembling a sitting position. With his hand, the one part of his body that wasn't fucked up to hell and back, he gave Eris a soft, gentle headpat. Was it to try and reassure her? Or was it to thank her for being his rock while the rest of the dummy ward simply looked on?[break][break]

"Breathe," he whispered, walking the line of his promise as he noticed Eris' strain. "Please. For me."

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]The worst part? He hadn't even reached the fucking monkey.[break][break]

Each slam was rougher than the last. The first was little more than a bad fall, knocking the wind out of Isaac. The next hit with enough force to leave his ribs creaking and his head ringing. By the third, they gave in with an echoing crack. It was almost as loud as their captor's laughter, psychically echoing through his head.[break][break]

One thing Isaac was quick to notice was how he was being dropped. Psychic power held his arms upwards before the drop, denying him any chance to brace himself. Was the monkey trying to stop him from lessening the pain? Or was it trying to keep him useful for the assembly line? As if to test it, Isaac rolled his shoulder inward, prepared to let his arm take the brunt of the fourth impact.[break][break]

At the last moment, his body swiveled. He'd landed full force on a limb, but it wasn't the one he'd hoped to. For his defiance, the monkey ensured he'd damn near snap his leg. Even as he tried to bite his tongue, Isaac couldn't hold it in any longer. He screamed, voice trailing off as he was hoisted higher, higher, higher still.[break][break]

By the time he'd made his final impact, blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.[break][break]

Despite it all, his screams trailed off into laughter. Even as his cracked ribs howled in agony, he found himself unable to stop. He looked at the retreating monkey through blurred eyes, barely able to crane his neck. "You call that a beating?" he said, even as his taunt fell on deaf ears. " 'Cause that doesn't even make my top five."[break][break]

The monkey didn't need to know that most of those top ranks had literally killed him.[break][break]

His eyes fluttered closed, watching as the monkey retreated into the distance. Then, as they eased back opened, it seemed to be coming back. Isaac braced himself, only to relax when he realized that it was a different short, blue figure approaching instead. Fighting his damndest, he propped himself up onto a single elbow. There was no light in his eyes, and yet his grin as unshakeable.[break][break]

"Sorry, sis. Tried my best."

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]"It's funny. I should have all the reason in the world to hate him."[break][break]

A part of him wanted to hate Cillian Quinn with all of his heart. It was the smart thing to do. If given even the slightest oppprtunity, he'd slaughter Isaac as readily as he'd slaughtered his team. It was arguably the moral thing to do, too. The man was an unrepentant part of the machine dismantling Hoenn from the inside. He was a monster.[break][break]

Yet Isaac couldn't help but remember the honor he showed in accepting supplies from their enemy to feed the people of Sootopolis. The same went for their walk in the woods, where he confessed his doubts in Walsh's sudden vicious turn. Then there was Galar, where a fresh start allowed Cil to know peace for the first time in Arceus knows how long. He didn't have to be this way, and yet there was nothing else he could be.[break][break]

Despite everything, Isaac didn't hate Cil. He pitied him.[break][break]

"But that doesn't change that he's gotta go down." He couldn't hate those who shaped him in Rocket. He couldn't let that lack of hate stay his hand. Those two truths would need to coexist, or else he'd be as good as useless in the war to come. When all was said and done, he could drop his sword for an outstretched hand. "For Hoenn. For Kanto. And, hell, for us."[break][break]

For Baki, maybe. Was there room for Isaac in the world to come next? He'd already cheated death more times than he could count. He'd have to pay the piper eventually. The reaper man was waiting for him in the Border, already intimately familiar with the feeling of his soul in its clutches.[break][break]

"No promises-" No. Her voice was sober, serious. Baki already carried enough pain. She didn't need his on top of it all. "But I'll do my best."

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]"We do." They didn't have a choice. To not act was to die. This thing was dangerous enough when it barely knew they were present. To let it stand when it was this infuriated would be to let the Lesser Megalopolis be reduced to ash.[break][break]

For a brief moment, Isaac thought back to the mural. A dragon covered in shimmering black crystal, calling down a light that burned the sky. To think this monstrosity was barely a fraction of the horror that Necrozma had once brought to this world.[break][break]

If Zev Harcourt was left unchecked, would their world be next to share its fate?[break][break]

Mesprit tugged at Suicune's mind. Suicune tugged at Isaac's. Isaac let himself be tugged from his thoughts. With a single nod, he gave his ascent, and then the two were airborne. Suicune swiveled, ice gathering at the pads of their paws. Like a crystalline pane of stained glass, the air behind them hardened into a surface just sturdy enough to stand upon. For but a brief, precious moment, Isaac and Suicune defied gravity.[break][break]

Then, in a hefty push, they invited it back in force. Suicune's deceptively powerful legs pushed off of the frost, and then they were no longer falling. They were hurtling. As they fell, the two of them flash froze the air around them, layer after layer building up until they were tearing through the sky like a comet. Inside, water pooled, softening to an almost gel like consistency to prepare them for impact.[break][break]

If Mesprit wanted a show, Mesprit would get a show.

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]It was a tragic irony. What Bryan saw as a betrayal, Xerneas saw as one last act of kindness.[break][break]

A wrathful god could have gored him with its massive horns and let that be the end of things. It could have snapped him in half with the very psychic power that currently held him. It could even turn its own gift into a poison pill, damning Bryan to an immortality without youth as he withered from age and wound. Instead, Xerneas left with its former charge in tow.[break][break]

All the while, Bryan lashed out against his fate. With nothing but maddened eyes and a shard of glass, he insisted he was still the one in charge here. Frankly, Isaac was amazed he didn't try to fling it at Xerneas in one last ditch effort. The Beast had been reduced to his namesake, little more than a slavering, desperate animal.[break][break]

That wasn't quite right. He was something both so much grander and so much more pathetic.[break][break]

Xerneas' intervention gave Isaac all the excuse he needed. Once more, he cupped his hands to his chest as if in silent prayer. He drew out one last peal of water of life, the exertion such that it left him stumbling. Suicune stepped forward to brace him, but Isaac held up a hand. It was okay. He just needed to do this. With a roll of his hand, Isaac sent the sphere over.[break][break]

"No. You're just Bryan Delarosa."[break][break]

With that final act of kindness, Isaac turned his back on his former friend. Until he figured out what that meant, there was nothing more Isaac could do to help him. He sighed, then gave Suicune a soft pat on the flank. If what Xerneas said was true - and the cold, clammy feeling in Isaac's gut strongly implied it was - it was time for them to go. In one step, two steps, and then three, Isaac silently pleaded for the winds to take him.

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]"Then don't you dare give that fight up. Not for someone like me."[break][break]

An eye for an eye made the world blind. Isaac knew that better than anyone. Ashley Shepard had taken his, after all, and Isaac had chosen love over vengeance. A part of him always wondered where he'd be if he'd walked the other path instead. It was as constant as his missing eye had been, and lingered even after it had been replaced.[break][break]

The fear of what he could have been would follow Isaac to the grave.[break][break]

"We've both done shit we can't forgive ourselves for." For all Isaac defended himself to the League's interrogations, he didn't do so out of a lack of remorse. If anything, he loathed himself more than they ever could. "But that's all the more reason why we're gonna do better. We know what the other option is."[break][break]

"So c'mon. Let's make that better tomorrow happen."

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]"Neither'd I!" Isaac flashed a big, cheeky grin, barely able to contain his own snickering. "But glad I could find out here, y'know? Not like anything bad can happen when I'm with people I trus-"[break][break]

For a moment, just a moment, his ever-present grin faded. His big, earnest eyes were struck by terror, a silent plea shining within them. For all his love, for all his trust, he knew exactly who he was. He remembered parker jones's warnings, fear for his own life matched by that he felt for the sister he loved's safety.[break][break]

Not even the comforting numb of drunkenness could change what fate may be in store for him.[break][break]

Aurelie's words snapped him out of it. He blinked rapidly, his normal expression quickly melting back onto his face. "Huh. I thought you had it." he said to Jack, before looking under Aurelie's welcome mat as if it could be hidden there. "Weird. If you don't got it, and I don't got it, then-."[break][break]

A cold breeze blew past Isaac, and a familiar Pressure settled over him. Isaac blinked rapidly from shock, only for him to break out into laughter. "No way," he said. Nonetheless, he turned on his heel to answer the door. "No way. This guy can't be serious."[break][break]

Serious, indeed. On the other side of the door stood Suicune themselves. They shot their chosen a deadpan look, mane idly drifting in the breeze. Then, with barely a word, they floated a takeaway box towards Isaac with Extrasensory power. "Hey, thanks, buddy!" he chirped, earning only a fond yet weary sigh in response.[break][break]

The northern wind was unpredictable as they were capricious. Isaac could barely even find them half the time, and yet here they were showing up with the forgotten snacks. Had they been tailing Isaac the whole time? Or did they simply choose to intervene, the right strange place at the right strange time?[break][break]

Perhaps they were simply curious to see what such strange creatures did with their gift of freedom.

[attr="class","isaactopimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]Lightning strikes on a cloudless day? Huh.[break][break]

There was some manner of sensory adjustment that came from living in a world of magic and monsters. It was something Isaac had never quite appreciated until he'd joined the amnestry program and seen it up close. When courtship displays could coat the world in ice, and turf wars could get small fires breaking out, you stopped getting caught off guard by the little surprises.[break][break]

Yet with that desensitization came knowledge. Isaac wasn't book smart, but even he knew that Pokemon attacks tended not to strike downward. That meant it couldn't have been some pissed-off Manectric spooking a flock of Tailow away from its range. No, no. This was something else. Something strange.[break][break]

Hoenn had a hell of a track record with strange.[break][break]

"Think that's enough for ollie morales to get the picture," Isaac said as he snapped one last picture of the Rpute 115 cliffside. The nice thing about having the speed of the north wind was that he could check for oddities in record time. Today's job had been seeing if the Solrock and Lunatone ranges were disrupted by Kyurem's landing. Judging by all the psychic craters, and the telltale streaks of orange and yellow dust, the girls were fighting again.[break][break]

Isaac had done his part. Now he could dive headfirst into another Hoenn mystery as a treat. He kipped up to his feet, taking one step, two steps, then three. One minute, he had been Isaac Merlo, proud member of the amnesty program. The next, he was the northern wind itself. Only a rush of cold air heralded his approach as he flew off in search of the mysterious lightning bolt.

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]If there was any doubt who his cellmate was, it was dispelled the section she'd launched into his arms.[break][break]

It made what came next all the worst. Of all the people in Hoenn to be subjected to a man being dismantled by nothing but psychic might, he hated that it had to be Eris Halla. She deserved better than even more horrors haunting her already-scarred mind. She deserved better than being forcefed strange, cursed candy, any reprieve brought by its delicious scent and taste torn away by its true cursed nature. She deserved better than being press-ganged into forced labor at the hands of cannibals, torturers, and their fucking monkey.[break][break]

That monkey. The gruesome way it reduced a dissenter to little more than stretched tendon and splintered bone, the poor bastard's brains painting the back of what had once been a head . . . Isaac was no stranger to Hoenn's horrors. That didn't make such gratuitous brutality any easier to swallow. Even Cillian Quinn and Zev Harcourt were nothing like this. For all their faults, they were professionals.[break][break]

Around here, the cruelty was the point.[break][break]

He wouldn't let it be the only one. The first slice across his fingers brought inspiration alongside pain. If these shards were sharp enough to cut his flesh, they were sharp enough to cut his uniform. "Here," he said as he approached Eris, strips of cloth loosely slung around his fingers. It would be easy to tie them around her small, delicate hands like a pair of impromptu handwraps. "Just in case."[break][break]

She wouldn't need it. Her hands were in better shape than his were. She was experienced at tasks like this, more than she should have been. However, he'd die a death of a thousand cuts before even thinking of letting Eris be at risk of one. "You're doing great, kid," he assured her, a quiet mumble as he finished his work.[break][break]

Perhaps to Eris, his hand softly squeezing hers was worth more than any piece of cloth.[break][break]

It was a promise of protection, and one he'd never dare break. It wasn't just her. It was everyone in this ward, a dozen strangers who could be friend, foe, or anyone in between. None of them were safe from that fucking monkey. Its shit-eating grin and wheezing snicker were inescapable as it tripped, taunted, and even smacked around the other prisoners. Bastard strutted around like it owned the place, and for all intents and purposes it did.[break][break]

Fuck that. Isaac was the King of the Aegis. He was the Liberator of the North Wind. He was a survivor who escaped Necrozma's clutches and braved the eye of Lugia's storm. And everyone in this cell was just as storied as him, if not leaps and bounds moreso. Why the hell were they going to sit around and take this? Since when did Hoenn let itself be strangled to death in toxic chains?[break][break]

It was a simple plan. The monkey seemed to get off on bullying the weak and the helpless, so why not play the part? Isaac fumbled his sorts. He clumsily tipped his box over with his hip. When particularly confused, he tripped over his own chain. His fingers were raw with cuts and slices. Blood cloudy with pebble dust trailed in his wake. It was as if he was doing everything in his power to make himself look like the most useless, victimizable target in the whole damn dummy ward.[break][break]

And it would all be worth it when his clowning around caught the monkey's notice. His hand, clutching bruised ribs, hid a particularly sharp tera fragment beneath his palm. He fought the urge to look at it, trusting his idly drumming fingers to remember its shape. He dulled his mind, counting the stones in his workbox to smother any and all surface thoughts. He'd only get one shot at this, so he couldn't give up the ghost now. He'd just have to keep playing his part as he awaited his captor; a weak, stupid dummy, until suddenly he wasn't.[break][break]

If Zev Harcourt had taught him anything, it was how to land a good stab.[break][break]

Fk2rHex7[break][break]

TEAL DEER[break]
Isaac makes handwraps for Eris.[break]
Then, he waits for Munkidori to pick on him so he can try and cut the bastard with a sharpened tera shard.[break]
Shiv has 200% clearance to do whatever he wants

[attr="class","topimage"]

[attr="class","textbox"]What was the definition of insanity? Trying the same thing, over and over and over again, and expecting things to change.[break][break]

Isaac was never one to sit down and accept the lot he was given in life. Sometimes, that meant standing against gods and monsters who could reduce him to atoms with a snap of their fingers. Sometimes, it meant prying precious life from the ashes and decay that had plagued Petalburg Woods. Sometimes, it meant making a little girl smile because he was the only one who could.[break][break]

And sometimes, it meant running into the brace of his own choke chain, convinced this time he'd be taken by the mists and slip on through.[break][break]

"Fucking hell-" The words were less said, more wheezed, relief only coming when Isaac stopped resisting and dropped to his knees. He let out a sigh as the chain finally slackened, taking greedy gulps of air in its wake. As he did, he looked around, finally realizing that he hadn't been running these experiments alone.[break][break]

"Ah, crap. A kid." What would Eris Halla think? Okay, she probably wouldn't care. He could practically feel how bad she wanted to let loose and curse up a storm most days. But, damnit. He had to be more careful than that. Especially when, frankly, the kid looked like they were having a far rough time than he ever could. Still rubbing his neck, Isaac began to cautiously approach.[break][break]

Huddled, terrified. Scratching at themselves through their all-encompassing jumpsuit. Quiet as the grave, compared to the cacophony of sound that was now filling the room as dozens of lost and damned began to stir from their rest. Everyone else could figure out this mess. He was a quick learner. He'd figure out how to follow in their wake.[break][break]

It wouldn't be worth being the big damn hero if he left this poor kid suffering in silence.[break][break]

"Hey. You okay?"[break][break]

tl;dr - Local dummy cannot be the wind, is checking on his dummy child cellmate.