The familiar shape of his roof against the Sootopolis horizon brings Gavin feelings of relief muted by the exhaustion that settles in his bones, a swirl of miasma cloaking him like a shroud as he walks along the beach.

He spots Chu-e Choi staring out over the water, hesitates before beginning his approach.

He's too close when he sees the crystal crackle across Chu-e's skin — the sight makes his skin crawl and stomach turn.

It retracts, forms again. Chu-e hasn't noticed him yet.

He clears his throat.

"Chu-e? Is it... you?"

He feels safe with the knowledge that Lugia lingers in the bay nearby; he can't see her spines, but feels the brush of her presence against his mind. Watchful, protective.

It's jarring, to see the crystals slip beneath the skin as if they were never there.

Unsettled, Gavin keeps his distance from Chu-e Choi even when the other assures him of his presence within a vessel now shared with another. His memories remain tinged with the prickle of needles and the sharp drag of a knife below his ribs.

Yet there's a relief, muted, in the way he acknowledges his friend.

"I'm glad you are, too."

Gavin worries at his lip, swallows.

"It's getting worse, isn't it?"

I can feel it in my head.

The thought makes Gavin's skin crawl. How would that feel?

Chu-e Choi inquires the same of Lugia, and Gavin gives it thought. It's hard to put into words.

"It's like... comforting, I guess? Most of the time. She's... protective, fierce. Wants to keep me safe." It was nice. "When she's angry, I feel that, too. Like, really feel it."

So much that it fuelled his own emotions.

A pregnant pause before he asks,

"What does... it feel like?"

Hungry.

Though Gavin tries to school his expression, maintain the mask, it slips with the word. Memories of Chu-e Choi proclaiming I'm starving as the thing inside of him attempted to drain Gavin's lifeforce remain too fresh, too loud in his mind.

"N-No, I can't say I have."

His voice cracks with nerves.

"Does it still want to have a go at me?"

Could Chu-e even say for sure?

Anxiety prickles hot and cold across his skin.

"Do you know what it wants? Is it because of the fragment?"

Though his memories of that night are fragmented through trauma, Gavin remembers that Chu-e Choi hadn't gone for him until he'd sighted the fragment in Gavin's fingers. Had abandoned his assault when Gavin had, at last, relinquished his grip on the prize.

It still bore the marks of his teeth.

"Do you think it would help if I...?"

He's afraid to finish the sentence, afraid that solidifying that thought into the open air might activate the murderous fury of the parasite inhabiting his friend's flesh.

"Yikes."

It's all he can think to say, at that. He's not sure how to feel.

"Is it — just me?"

But, no, Chu-e Choi had attacked Balder, as well.

"Or just certain people, maybe?"

He doesn't make the connection in his brain. He's too focused on the thought that if Necrozma could get its hooks in him again, there would be little stopping it from sucking him dry. Except—

He will NOT harm you.

"Lugia can reach me, here. She's nearby."

His voice is soft in an attempt to reassure, but he doesn't dare step close as he once would have. He wants to hold Chu-e close the way he had when the other had told him he was dying, comfort him, but he doesn't dare risk his life.

Gavin's own protective urges toward the shadowed legend are overwhelmed by the fury that cuts across his thoughts. Primal, proud, the overwhelming sense that the Diving Pokemon would not be bested by that thing, not again—

Gavin winces, a headache pulsing behind his eyes.

"I think she'd put up a better fight than I did."

There's a note of bitterness for his own weakness. He'd tried to fight but even as an avatar, his powers were based around his Pokemon. Without them, he felt no stronger than he'd been before.

"Who else?" Gavin prods, guesses, "Balder?"