she has barely slept. she has eaten because tsubaki ensures she has eaten. with kyle gone, the threat of an attack from rocket is imminent. there are too many cities to fortify, too many people to protect, and too many duties that need to be carried out. and she is but one of a handful trying to keep ever grande together. 

there is a somber air surrounding ever grande. freya had almost called off the training session with desiree, but now more than ever do they need trainers fit for the fight ahead.

running several minutes late after their latest council meeting, freya has a cold cup of coffee in hand by the time she finally rounds the corner. she blinks when she sees desiree, checks her watch, grimaces, and apologizes as she approaches. 

"hope you weren't waiting long. let's get started." pleasantries are not top of mind as she opens the door to the training room that currently houses diancie. 

DESIREE BLOOMS

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you would do so well, she thinks. you could do so much good. but she wouldn't, really. there's no feasible way ana could ever make it into a league laboratory setting with what she's done here, with what she's currently doing to her head. most people would make her out to be crazy. 

she'd never become a practitioner. the people she was helping right now would lose her. freya would lose her. 

at the apology, she shakes her head, says, "don't apologize. memories and dreams - gods, they're so hard for me to tell the difference between anymore."

she contemplates the explanation and what it means for the creature in front of them. its likeness to the swords of justice is absolute. tests are being conducted on them in league labs as they speak to gauge their power levels, but a majority of the data that's already come back suggests they're not on par with their flesh and bone counterparts. supposedly.

"so you think they're learning. at least in some capacity." she nibbles her lip. "but is it all code or is there...is there a thing in there? a soul?" she feels silly even asking it. better to get to the heart of the actual question.

"do you think it'd be wrong to take it apart?"

ana fell

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why the bugs? freya's lips twitch. the ice beam melts in midair, sloshing down as water onto the ground. it trickles into some of the pools at their sides. melody maneuvers well enough out of her way, but freya doesn't press her offensive too hard just yet. 

melody miro is all about more than meets the eye; with all-out-force, she'd burn up before she could manage any headway. so she waits, using the mutilated ice beam as a cover so aiofe can inch closer and close some of the gap between them. 

ah. there it is. the noivern terastalizes as melody makes her move. it's a phenomena that brought her her victory over fernando - an act she shied away from for so long because she was afraid of making her dragons any less draconic. 

"you may have stripped its typing, but it's still a dragon, mel," she calls and through the crystalline sheen over its scales, freya reads its body language as it nears. the crawling infestation bounces off of the noivern's screech and though its attack doesn't go wide, it leaves miirym enough wiggle room to move quickly around the disoriented bat and aim dragon darts at its exposed hide.

aoife claps her palms together and thrusts them out at the thin stream of water leading towards melody's gardevoir, thunderbolt sparking from her fingertips.

Melody Miro

dragapult (not dragalge lmao) uses dragon darts
dragapult and goodra hit by screech
goodra uses thunderbolt

☉

once upon a time, she may have agreed with her, but the world is anything but black and white. humans are walking contradictions. totality will always, always burn you. 

"i know that too well," she says, lips a thin line. she'd tried to forget once, when all that pain had become too much. why live and fight for herself when she could abandon the person who let her down time and time again?

why suffer when she could abandon herself for another?

"it took me too long to learn we don't have to shoulder our pain alone." she looks at her, curious. "does chi-yu help share your burdens?"

PENELOPE LIVY

☉

much of freya has changed in the past few years. a large number of her volunteers at the draciary are from the amnesty program. two and a half of her closest friends are rocket turncoats (ana fell doesn't fully count, as she only remembers the last six months); her partner is a rocket turncoat.

second chances have changed dozens of lives for the better. how many people did Isaac Merlo save on the shores of their last faction skirmish? how many civilians saw another day because of Caleb Harcourt's actions in the frozen icelands?

but in war, there is no room in her heart for mercy. those who stand against her on the field will receive no olive branch - only blue-tinged flame. 

shuwen falls and molten fire still drips from lyune's maw, smoking the ground.

"then we cut them down just the same, navidson." her eyes narrow, flicker from her anguished adversary and to her dragon. one single, short word spoken in draconic and lyune snaps his jaw shut, snorts smoke from his nostrils, and the bloodthirsty giant of a dragon is made stoic.

"i won't fail my people again."

Michael Navidson

☉

there's the truth of it. the region will never be safe. if they overcome their newest adversaries, something bigger and something meaner will come their way. so why not forget? why not give up every bad memory and let it all drift away in a nice breeze?

because i've done that. because i let someone else take my mind and it's the worst mistake i've ever made. ana knows this. ana knows it. all the finer details she's never told anyone else. and maybe that's why she tries to impart the blessing now. 

their die has already been cast. 

when she grins, freya tries to match with equal enthusiasm. "i'm not sure," she admits truthfully.

"i won't breed him like i do the others. he'll pick his mate and when the clutch hatches, we won't separate them. the last male and female left standing will be the strongest after they devour their brothers and sisters."

ana fell

☉

cadet holmes, she recognizes, is her antithesis. he is a thinker where she is a doer. luckily for him, his empoleon accounts for his shortcomings. while his empoleon spars with the dragon, freya examines the trainer, and finds his willpower...lacking. his curiosity, however, reminds her remarkedly of eva's. 

some of us aren't meant for war and yet it finds them, over and over and over again. 

"most of them, yes," she says and looks back at the battle - both sides are bloodied. limbs shake. commands lose any power as primal instinct takes over in totality. it'll be good for her, in the long run, to know she will not be made docile. 

"a dragon is never wholly tamed. they're not yampers or furfrou. mutual respect and loyalty, earning their trust - that makes you partners." t'neri slashes outward and rake across a steel defense. "they won't settle for anything less."

porter holmes

☉

"we won't let anything happen to you," she promises - saying it so makes it impermeable. she will not let what happened to tsubaki happen to anyone else again, not even if she has to raze the entire realm to make it happen. 

she wonders, as they follow, if micolash would do the same if given the command. her foray with yuina's naganadel had shown the creatures are much smarter than any ordinary dragon. there's still so little they know about them at all.

"yes," she says begrudgingly. "we lost an arms race to them out here a few months ago." she nearly died several times over. the wounds have healed, but the brutality of that day has left its scars on her. she rubs her shoulder, ghost pain shivering over her limb; the sygna suit hides the stretched and warped red scars from her burns.

"still, we're more likely to run into more ultra beasts or walking megalopolan corpses." she glances sideways. "i can't decide if i think you're brave or stupid for resurfacing after all this time. i hear kalos is nice this time of year."

micolash reacts faster than freya to the light source, wings fluttering like moth to flame as the light winks in and out of the sea. she follows carefully, palm rested on her clavicle in case she needs to release lyune. but what greets them is an eerily quiet reef, the blinking cracked headlamp of a submarine intermittently illuminating its shape stuck in the bleached coral.

micolash chitters and taps at the light with his claws, fixated. freya frowns. 

"it might attract others soon with that light. help me pull it out; i think i can see where it's lodged in there."

PETRA MONROE

36. encounter an operational pod-like submarine to ride through liquid or air. it is a claustrophobic vessel with a limited view of its surroundings. instead, it can be prompted to take pictures of its surroundings to reveal what is around it.

☉

dainty town it may be, but it houses a portal to the ultra deep sea. it's not as big a port town as slateport, but the fisheries and canneries dotting the isle are key exports for the sleepy town. in the wake of everything that's happened, she needs to be in a dozen different places at once, with little time to stop and chat. 

"you're back on your feet faster than i thought you might be," she says and tilts her chin, suggesting he follow her. 

"a lot of other folks would have brushed with death like that and put their resignation letters in as soon as sense bled through all the adrenaline. yet here you are. why?"

Noel Parker

☉

there are too many puzzle pieces, too many anomalies. she thinks back to fernando's office, his hands wavering through a hologram, each meticulous choice bathing the room in red. red, red, red. no matter where they turn or what they do, they inch ever slowly towards their own demise. 

she never thought his job was easy, but gods, she never fathomed how hopeless it is. 

"i'd be more worried about you if you did know what he's been up to." as would others. doubt has wriggled its way out of freya's head when it comes to isaac merlo, but there are still plenty others in the league's ranks that carry a malicious distrust of the rocket turncoat. 

if they can't accept someone like him, how could they ever accept - she shoves the thought away. this isn't about KING WAYLAND.

"i'll need everything you know about him. we'll submit it to sapphire and work on filling out a profile for him so we can create a proper response protocol. he's likely an avatar. do you have any idea what could have aligned with him?"

Isaac Merlo

☉

their worst fears have been realized and those consequences lay thick in the air like a heavy smog. the wrong person died in the fire and now all of hoenn's people are at risk because of it. it is the cruelest injustice in the world that the man who deserves least rests at home, visited by friends he's wronged dozens of times over. 

her jaw tightens. 

"all of Eva Morales's efforts to quell primordial kyogre have been in vain." she glances at penelope. "and we're bleeding. we try to take sootopolis now and we leave ourselves open to siege at other important cities."

port cities. trade routes and shipping waters. nautica, another asset gone.

"but if they're preparing to strike, we must do so as well. they'll expect us to be on the defense with kyle gone and groudon's avatar out of commission."

dahlia goode FERNANDO SILPH PENELOPE LIVY

☉

she does not hate him. to hate him, to spurn him now, would mean to reject the absolute before her. water patters over her skin and she leans back into him, remembering all at once how at home she felt in his arms, in that bath, coddled like a newborn babe. 

when he reassures her, she tilts her chin up, jaw slackening, water dribbling down her lips and down her throat. her swallow flexes the muscles where the toxic chain lay thick and pustulous, bleeding into her a purple haze where all their suffering is only an arduous journey meant to mold them into more. 

"i believe you," she says, as though it were the most profound thing in the universe.

later, when she's dried and layered in unsoiled clothes, she does not protest when her cellmate offers her the cot. closeness has always prickled her, but now all she can do is draw in close to that warmth and fall into a restless, listless sleep.

Aurelie Lefevre

reacting to FERNANDO SILPH and Aurelie Lefevre
freya goes to sleep!
freya delulu hours!
fleshing out her fun adventures in more threads.

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