The first indication the townsfolk of Pacifidlog would get is the sudden, violent rocking of the pirate's ship as if something's crashed into it from below. A violent peal of THUNDER before lightning strikes the deck. Then a howl of HURRICANE winds that batter the hull and toss bodies over rails and into the hungry ocean below.

A dark shadow beneath the waves, a glint of bone-white spines, and Shadow Lugia erupts from the deep with a haunting whalesong.

Gavin clings to her back, miasma wreathing legend and avatar like a smoky shroud as broad wings carry them in a wide arc over Pacifidlog's makeshift docks. Gavin's shirtless, scars bared — he'd taken enough time only to pull on some pants and grab his breathing apparatus after staggering out of bed to answer the plea.

SHADOWS gather in a violent STORM that slams into the ship, nearly capsizing it with the force.

Amber eyes rake the panicked faces, searching for one in particular.

Makeshift weapons raised, stricken faces of those ready to fight, unused to help.

They're not sure what to make of Cillian Quinn, wary despite him being a savior.

It's Tulio that pushes them aside, aged pistol in hand but not raised.

"He's on the ship!" Barked out, quick. Meaning the pirate ship that's now struggling, clearly flooding with water.

The pirates crowd like ants, speedboats lowering in the water as they try to escape their fate.

Gavin recognizes the voice, gold eyes finding Tulio in the gloom.

"Got it!"

Lugia needs no instruction; she banks hard as they soar over the sinking pirate vessel, wings angled to bring them low. Gavin's hand rests against her neck in silent thanks before he leaps, landing hard against a heaving deck.

The shock of it reverberates through his bones and he's slammed against the rail, pain lancing through his arm that he barely registers through the adrenaline. Miasma wreathes him like a spectral fog.

A Dhelmise reveals itself as its ANCHOR SHOT curls around the hull, SHADOWS snaking out to HOLD the vessel in place. Gavin raises his voice, its deep cadence threaded with fury.

"Show me where you're keeping your prisoners or I'll drown every last one of you."

The ship quakes violently as Lugia lands on its bow, a lash of her spiked tail sending a would-be escapee skidding across the deck.

Most of the rats have already scurried away.

A stricken woman, one arm broken, a gun in her other hand, snarls at Cillian Quinn. She leans against a Machoke.

"It's a fuckin' boat. Where you think?" She raises the gun at him but her hand shakes. Her chin is jerked at a wide open door, swinging wildly in the wind and rain, leading below deck. Lights flicker from an otherwise darkened stairwell. She backs away, slowly, as if that will help her.

And, should Gavin make his way down them.

Temp, bloody and bruised, slamming a hard fist into a man's face. Two more circle him, one with a knife. Behind him, two kids and an older man are huddled together, a young boy sobbing. His Medicham is boxing another Machoke.

He's snarling, vicious in a way Temp rarely bothers to be.

Gavin wouldn't have chosen to hurt her. His mind's on other things, on the panic in brown eyes and the way his cry of help had been stifled by the crack of gunfire.

Lugia has no such reservations.

A gun is raised with a shaking arm and with a deafening crash of THUNDER as its herald, a bolt of lightning strikes down from the skies.

Gavin's already turned away, sprinting down the stairs.

The knife in one man's hand is stolen by a MAGICIAN'S tricks, the shadowed Delphox wreathing its mark in SHADOW FIRE. The other is assaulted by Gavin himself, forgoing weapons in favour of a cold clock across the jaw.

Klefki's own SHADOW HOLD snakes around the calves of the Machamp, pinning it to afford Medicham the advantage.

"Sorry about the water, Lugia wanted to say hello."

It sloshes violently about their feet, flooding.

"Gavin!"

His voice rings sharp with joy even in these circumstances.

Sadly, he can't enjoy seeing Cillian Quinn as he normally would.

Hid Medicham cracks a Thunder Punch in the Machoke's face and takes it down.

Temp has already turned around and is hauling the old man up onto his back. His leg is bent at an awkward angle.

"They grabbed three kids but I can't find the other one!" Just the two that now cling to him.

"Hey, you."

Fond but undercut with evident stress. Delphox hands Gavin the knife on a beam of psychic energy and he shoves it in his belt for safe-keeping.

Amber eyes seem tinted red in the gloom as the miasma swirls around him.

"I'll find them and meet you up top. Dhelmise'll stop this thing from sinking but it can't stop the flood."

He'd left his Cradily at home; no STORM DRAIN to aid them this time.

He does have his Lucario, who fires a HEAL PULSE at Tempest Quinn before slamming its paws together with eyes closed. Its AURA SENSE scans through the flooding hull but it's not to any of the dark corners the canine indicates; instead, it turns to a ragged hole in the hull and gives a sharp bark of alarm.

Gavin doesn't think twice before plunging into the water and kicking off the splintered wood.


On the deck, Temp would witness Lugia curl her long neck toward the waves before launching off the ship with a force that makes it tremble. She plunges into the sea with little regard for a pirate's lifeboat that gets in the way, flipping the craft and sending its occupants into the deep.

It's a little more than a minute before the leviathan resurfaces, landing on the deck with Gavin clinging to her neck and an unconscious child nestled between the broad spines along her back.

"You know CPR?"

There is a hell of a lot happening.

Temp knows he needs to hurry and get back up, knows he needs to get these people to the desk.

But his heart twists in a funny way when Cillian Quinn drops into the water.

He'll need to assess that later.

Either way, he makes it back up top in enough time to almost be toppled over from the sudden rocking of the ship when Lugia hops off of it. He's busy trying to set the old man and the two kids in a mildly safer spot when Gavin returns. He had been thinking of calling out either his Lapras or Wailmer to transport them, had been silently cursing not having some type of flying pokemon to make this easier.

"Gavvie!" Darting up, Temp meets him halfway.

"I do! Lay her down, flat! Quick!"

There's no hesitation in the way Gavin obeys. Lugia lowers herself to make it easier on them, red eyes menacing but for once lacking malevolence as they cut across the deck.

The child is laid out flat and Gavin steps back to give Tempest Quinn space.

There's a wild pounding in Gavin's heart, a tightness in his chest that registers distantly as worry grappling with relief. Temp was bruised and bloodied but he was safe, now. An overwhelming urge to kiss him is chalked up to nerves.

As Temp works on the girl, Gavin addresses the injured man and the two kids. He makes an imposing sight with his cloak of shadow but his voice is surprisingly soft.

"Any injuries besides the obvious?"

Gavin's Lucario soothes what it can with its HEALING PULSES, easing pain while they're forced to wait for proper medical attention.

"My Corviknight can airlift when you're ready."

The shadowed beast with its sharpened beak is docile in Gavin's presence, droplets of water from the overhead storm sliding off its steely plumage.

Even if they shake like leaves in the wind, there is an exhaustion that is clear. This ordeal has shaken these people to the core. They're not like Cillian Quinn, not even like Temp; they could not be the main characters of this region, do not want to be. They're likely better off for it.

The younger of the pair, a little boy, no older than five at best, traces the shape of Lugia with his finger.

The old man shakes his head.

"No... I don't believe so. Is she....?" He stares after the girl, forlorn, worry for his grandchild.

About that time, a small body shakes, coughing up water. Temp pulls the girl into his arms and brings her shivering form over.

'She's fine!" Temp answers, pushing her back into Gavin's arms. Her tiny hands cling to his arms.

Not afraid to take charge, he's already helping the group onto the bird.

The boy whines, reaching for Lugia, too young to understand.

Gavin can hardly remember what it is to be ordinary. To live a life of relative safety, even if not comfort, for the biggest of tragedies to be violent storms or the onset of pirates. His life has become plunging through timelines and wormholes and chaos.

But even Gavin lets out a soft breath as the girl takes hers.

Rocket's underboss won't allow many to touch him but the girl's too-small hands are not brushed away.

"You're all right," he soothes, and helps her onto the Corviknight.

He doesn't miss the way the younger boy whines, the way his fingers stretch toward the legend whose dark wings cast shadows across the ship's deck. Lugia blinks at the tiny human, perhaps reminded of Eris Halla.

Gavin doesn't often deal with children, at least not those whose fates aren't intertwined with Rocket.

"What is it?"

The boys hums and haws, chewing his words as if deciding how to speak.

"Nice birdie...." Is what he settles on, his little hands gripping more eagerly towards the legend.

Temp is who cuts in, more adept at this. Used to the children of his village crawling all over him when he visits. His dad was the closest thing to a 'mayor' they had; he had been groomed since he was a kid to care for his people.

So Temp plucks the child back down.

"I think he wants to ride on Lugia." The boy huffed and buried his face against Temp's chest, as if embarrassed for being called out.

While the danger had mostly passed, the ship was still taking on water and it was still storming. They would need to make their choices fast.

Cillian Quinn

Oh. Bless him.

Where most looked at the shadowed legendary and saw the corruption of a once-noble deity, this child saw only a 'nice birdie' that had erupted from the ocean with his sister on her back. It reminds him of the nice things Eris Halla had said of Lugia.

How Lugia had told Gavin, You have been kind to me.

For she was still deserving of kindness, even as she was.

"Come on, then."

Lugia lowers herself against the deck once more and Gavin offers a hand to help the boy up onto her back.