it's unassuming at first. an old weather institute report tucked in among papers that don't seem relevant or connected to anything.

that's how it always is though — the prelude to the biggest waves are always small swell that hide the large ones from view; the dangerous waves that threaten to pull you under and pin you down.

she places the two reports alongside one another, lines them up exactly. the underground shock waves, the measurements of sheer power are of the same nature. persephone expects elation, but it doesn't come at first. only this strange hollowness, throat constraining as though overcome by something else too — fear? guilt?

she comes back to it the next day, double-checks the coordinates. paces the room until the pieces come together.

she comes back to it the day after, triple-checks the coordinates. paces the room until she can accept that this is more than part wishful thinking and part confirmation bias.

the pen still trembles in her hand when she circles the target location on the map. drawing the long, straight corresponding lines is easier because they're familiar; their geometry is etched into her skin.

convincing the submarine captain to actually take her there is an almost farcical scene.

persephone asks, he feigns interest, she pulls out the maps and speaks in a placating excitable tone, and he denies her time and time again until she loses patience and pulls out every league certification to her name; head scientist convinces him where nothing else could.

she can't sleep in the nights leading up to the expedition. the ocean sings too loudly.

preparations are made under a veil of secrecy — if only because she plays it off as unimportant to the captain and mentions nothing about it to any colleagues.

it's like the body and the mind are disconnected, persephone stares at the water behind the glass but sees nothing, just blue. the cavern's mouth looms and she heads to it alone.

because when the big waves come, when they pin you down? you always have to face them alone.

not even the pillars of light from above can reach these depths. they left the sun behind long ago.

the ancient script stares back at her; each dot just another pupil of an eye that isn't there. persephone can decipher it at a distance through the seawater pressing around her, through the steel and glass, but she knows this is not the natural way of reading the text. that requires tactical contact; the words ask for touch to reaffirm they still have meaning, to reaffirm that the writer can still reach the reader.

she unpacks the words, lays them out in front of her, going over them again and again long after their meaning crystallised into three points.

glanth; the old name for relicanth. aura; the esoteric way some pokemon can reach out into the unknown and extract information. the pokemon of origin; a terror. sometimes, things are locked away for a reason. she looks away.

persephone takes out two pokemon capsules, her oldest ones. she places the first into a small chute designed to release pokemon outside the sub into the water. out there, the relicanth looks more at home than she had ever seen it. persephone unlocks the second capsule at her side, waiting a heartbeat for the lucario to materialise into his form and take in their surroundings.

when she speaks into a megaphone to direct her relicanth, persephone is taken aback to hear her voice. she asks for an ANCIENT POWER and watches the water churn with bubbles and rising stone shards. the sub's lights are obscured when persephone turns to the lucario, eyes resting momentarily on the mega accessory at her wrist.

the lucario has done this before, and she wonders if its ethical of her to keep asking him for this. he searched for regirock in those caverns so long ago, he scoured the ultra beast in mossdeep for weakness and fought with a borrowed power. and she'll ask him to do it again and again.

the remnants of the relicanth's ANCIENT POWER press against the window, obscuring what light there is from the external beams.

"search for me, please. is something trapped inside?"

the lucario isn't in the habit of questioning orders. he focuses on the rock face, on what's beyond it, eyes wide open and looking far ahead to things his partner cannot see and cannot fathom. at his limbs an azure pulse flickers, like the forming of an AURA SPHERE, and persephone holds her breath.