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[attr="class","postruinstxt"]Greyson slams his door open, skin pale and breath coming fast. His anger was pulsating like an errant heartbeat and he reaches out unconsciously to tug on the thin thread of strength that was his Sygna Suit.

Power floods into him, an intoxicating sensation of superiority. He knew intrinsically that, with a swipe of his hand, he could tear this building from its foundation. That he was unstoppable.

From the balcony an enraged Delphox steps through, eyes filled with violet light. He has but a moment to look up, his own a desperate pleading to match her fury, before he's violently wrenched into the deep murk of his subconscious beneath her PSYCHIC influence.

Consciousness floods through him as he wakes in the mire that was his mindscape. A deep, permeating black surrounded him; an uncomfortable stretch devoid of light with an underlying sinister aura he couldn't place.

He'd avoided this place since that day that Caleb Harcourt had interrupted him and given the choice he'd had never returned—the truth was a hard thing to embrace.

Like before, his Delphox meditates above, her eyes the only source of notable light—deep pools of energy that burned the same violet flame as moments before.

The face that once looked over him like an observant God was no where to be seen.

"Why?" His voice came out as a harsh, raspy whisper, as if speaking for the first time in days. He swallows, snarling, angry at the sign of weakness. He tries again, only this time it comes out as a scream. His voice echoes across this empty space, mocking.

"WHY?" He searches in vain for something to throw, to kick, to tear or rip. His anger wasn't with the Delphox, he knew, but she was the only thing nearby.

Or so he thinks.

A mocking laugh echoes and the familiarity of it turns his blood cold. Turning, he comes face to face with none other than MATIAS SILPH.



"connors. i told you that you were weak. turns out your delphox agrees."

Unable to stop himself, Greyson lunges for the specter, the visage laughing even as hands wrap around it's throat. He finds purchase, digging fingers into the flesh of this thing, yet when he stares into the eyes the orbs that look back steal his breath.

"Murderer." Lulu Flint's voice cracks through lips the same pale imitation of blue as memory served. His hands tear themselves from her throat, as quick as if they'd touched an open flame, and he scrambles from her prone form, eyes wide.

As he watches she dissolves into nothing and that same mocking laugh returns.

"you should've seen your face. tch."

That same smug arrogance; that infuriating sense of self importance. Arceus he hated that look. Recovering, he jumps to his feet, though his face his multiple shades more pale.

"no wonder annalise ran from you. you can't control yourself; you're a danger to everyone around you. it was inevitable that she would choose me."

It was said with such a simple matter of fact that Greyson himself nearly believed it. "even now, after all i've done, the league will always need me. anna will always need me. you? tch. what was it you called me? that's right. you're a cog in the wheel."

Shook from his stupor, his anger a righteous fury that sparks him to action, Greyson forms something coherent enough to finally reply.

"Fuck you." He spits, but hates how weak the statement felt in the face of this specters taunting. "We both know that she'll see you for who are. The spiteful little fuck that never has enough."

Why was he arguing with this thing? It wasn't really Matias.

But did that matter? It felt good to say.

"You're nothing without Groudon; without your powers. She'll see that. Everyone will." Yet even as he said it, doubt trickled in. If they hadn't by now than would they ever?

He blinks, a move that felt alien in this endless black bog, but in the span of that motion, the visage of Matias is gone.

"he's stronger than you. he can help me in ways you can't."

He whirls again, expecting Matias, but instead he sees only annalise henderson, her outline shrouded in that same strange black smoke.

She looks the same as he'd last seen her only hours before. Damp hair and shorts hidden beneath Matias's shirt. A trophy of his conquest draped over soft skin. Greyson casts his gaze to the floor and tightens his eyes shut.

"Why? Why him? Anyone but him." His voice comes softer this time, pleading.

Her touch comes as soft as he remembers. Hands wrap around either side of his face, a warm embrace his heart yearned for. Hope rekindled, he looks up to meet her eyes.

A half-skewed smile and an ocean of pity meets his.

"can you really blame me for picking the better guy? you didn't show up for me when that rocket was pointing a gun at me, but he did."

He feels his chest tighten, his knees buckle. Her support fades as she does and he collapses once more to his knees.

Another voice, this one filled with disappointment.

"We don't have room for another mentally unstable member of the Elite Four." freya morningstar. Her attention shifts to a figure that steps from the boundless black beyond, their steps echoing in this well of silence.

"He's no better than Team Rocket. A loose cannon."

Caleb Harcourt.

His heart beats strangely as defiance once more rises. It feels pitibly weak.

"I'm nothing like them." Yet a face stares back at him from the murk. Velmos. The Megalopolan general.

"I didn't have a choice." His voice comes choked with emotion. "I couldn't let you-"

"—Join me?"

The next voice turns his blood cold. Zev Harcourt stands where the others had been, face shrouded by the helm he'd been wearing when the Avatar had ambushed him. His eyes drop to the man's hands and find the sharpened claws coated in blood.

Pain erupts in his abdomen and he looks down in horror to see his intestines poking through the wound. His hands shoot to the hole and his screams are haunting as he tries to stem the bleeding.

A massive vibrating noise shakes the space and despite his instincts screaming at him not to look up, he does.

The massive dynamaxed form of Necrozma silhouettes its avatar, carapace a shade blacker than even the void that surrounds them. A PRISMATIC LASER quivers in anticipation, glowing brightly in the alien's maw.



"The League will move on without you." This voice comes softer, just at his side. PENELOPE LIVY. "You'll be a martyr. Another reason to fight. You'll do more good dead than alive."

Resignation settles in, shoving anger out of its path more easily than he'd expected.

They were right. All of them.

Something cold settles against his neck and he feels the prickling of blade's edge.

"These were the convictions you'd die for? Weak and pitiful, Lieutenant Conners."

jayden cross.

The visage pulls at the scruff of his hair and lifts him harshly to face the ever glowing sun in-front of him. His hair is a bleached white, exactly as he remembers from their last meeting.

All around the ghastly form of Necrozma are dozens of faces. Friends, enemies, family—people who in one way or another meant something to him, dead or currently living. He saw in them the flashes of pity, of excitement, of disappointment. But among them, not a single look of sorrow.

As the PRISMATIC LASER reaches its apex, Greyson releases a blood curling scream of anger and grief. The attack lances through this bog and consumes the man and the beast that holds him.

He wakes, still screaming, curled fetal on the living room floor. Tears stain his cheeks, pooling with snot and drool.

There was no anger. No panic. No fear. Only chest racking sobs as he curls further into himself.

He was alone. Utterly alone.