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[attr="class","ipad"]THANKS, MOTHER[break][break]
her meticulous studies eventually bestow her with rewards. through watery eyes, her cross examinations of primal sea paths eventually unenarth a geographical and historical connection. an old weather institute report, discussing the documentation of ancient natural disasters, mentions coordinates that intersect with one of the underwater routes.[break][break]

the relevant section in the WI report mentions catastrophic earthquakes originating from the seafloor cavern. persephone would forge another mental link between her findings and a contemporary report: earthquakes from the desert ruins near mauville, dated prior to the regirock raid. however, it may simply be coincidental.[break][break]

mother's old notes emanate with a fondness that seems to ring and echo across time.[break][break]

there is a submarine service in sootopolis or in pacifidlog, should you choose to embark toward the sea.[break][break]

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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.

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[attr="class","ipad"]THANKS, MOTHER[break][break]
the light does not penetrate down here. in the murky depths of hoenn's oceans, the dark conceals all. it hides the denizens of the deepest dives. it muffles their groans. conceals the forgotten architecture of fallen ships and wailord bones.[break][break]

and yet, for persephone, alone in her small, vulnerable submarine with its tiny, flickering beams of light, memory is what draws her descent. her mother's memory seems to beckon from the maw of the seafloor cavern. it calls to her. like the call of the void. what they call l'appel du vide- but she jumps. dives deeper. her submarine chugs along.[break][break]

her mega accessory seems to quake. the slightest vibration rattles through its make as she scours the trench... eventually, her submarine lights scrape across a stretch of cavern cliff-wall. it's oddly shaped. the seaweed refuses to grow on it.[break][break]

she sees something. but what? familiarity tugs at her mind as she re-positions her lights like she did in the desert ruins, uncovering markings through the arc of torchlight. the same script- the same language found in the ruins is inscribed here too.[break][break][break]

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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.

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PERSEPHONE'S LUCARIO SEARCHES past the stone with aura sight. psychically, the pokemon communicates what it sees. in her mind, she can see how the aura seeks what's beyond, outlining what appears to be some underwater cavern system. through her lucario, perse discovers forests of sea vegetation. sudden dips and crevasses. boulders oddly constructed- perhaps, manmade but through the static of her lucario's aura-gaze, no details are truly discernible.[break][break]

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in spots, the psychic gaze glitches. like a spotty television signal or buzzing screen, certain locations blip out of vision. blind spots. some supernatural power seems to be interfering. should persephone consult her research of ley lines, such spots would align themselves with where these lines cross. the lucario continues with its searching aura as far as it can- until suddenly...[break][break]

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they see something horrendous. a terrifying presence consumes both the lucario and persephone as one eye stretches wide as if pulled up suddenly by hooks. the aura search ends immediately. the link is severed. the lucario stumbles a bit and leans on its trainer for support, panting as if having fought a battle. surprisingly, the cliff-side glows... then opens. an ancient gate allows entry into the dark underwater cave.[break][break]

a sudden rush of pressure batters the submarine from the opening- but there is no current. no surplus surge of water. should perse examine her submarine's fuel, suddenly what was once full is now almost empty.[break][break]

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within her brilliant mind, the map of their aura excursion lingers. the two obstacles (marked by the question mark) in the center seems to feature a terribly deep trench... the leftmost obstacle has shown glimpses of boulders and narrow tunneling, while the rightmost obstacle features a forest of knotty, tangling seaweed.[break][break]

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AS PERSEPHONE'S SUBMARINE chugs along, she finds that the cavern walls have lines inscribed in their cold stone. like carved vines, they all rush deeper into the underwater cavern as if acting as arrows to the unknown.[break][break]

as her machine floats deeper, the elite four member is conscientious of her fuel reserves. the seabed thickens with seaweed until it becomes a forest. as her vessel attempts to navigate the kelp, she finds it difficult to steer.[break][break]

recovering still, her lucario barks at the windshield. a curious stone altar sits atop a small alcove surrounded by seaweed. there is a hole in its center—like a stone lantern's—empty, as if needing to be lit. the carved wall-lines intersect through its structure.[break][break]

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suddenly, her submarine stops. tangled in seaweed, the ship is stubbornly stuck in place. a dragalge wraps its leaf-like appendages around the ship and begins to spew poisons (TOXIC) to cloud the water around it.[break][break][break]

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