He slips from her grasp and fades into the ether like a half-forgotten memory. Skyler makes to follow with hands outstretched, a supplication of sorts, a last chance at the closure she'd never get.

'Sky! Stop!'

A cold breath rattles through her throat as she halts at the lip of the yawning abyss. For a sliver of a second she doesn't want to look, not knowing which she feared more: the phantom with forgiveness in sightless eyes; or the man she'd sworn to chart her future with. 

Both wore the same face.

A solid grip yanks her back, and she is pulled against an even warmer body. With a startle, she realizes that her skin is icy, as if leeched of life, and mists clings to it lovingly. Cold as snow. Cold as the dead.

Her brain barely has time to catch up when they're shoved aside from an explosion of fire that scorches the ground and dispells the mists for a time - right where they'd been not a second before.

A rapid heartbeat rattles her ribcage, the distant thundering of it echoing in her ears. But the shiver of adrenaline feels good, is like coming home. "Fuck Vestri, who did you piss off this time?"

The cherub-like Pokemon that parts the fog seems awfully focused on them, and Angelo specifically.

Muscles tense for a fight and she positions herself to cover angelo vestri 's back, an instinct borne out of habit. Her fingers curl around the blade on her thigh.

"Dhelmise."

The Pokemon emerges into existence beneath Victini, tendrils of shadow reaching out to coil around the smaller creature as PHANTOM FORCE sinks in. Squeezing past fragile flesh, already weakened by Caleb Harcourt 's and Gunner Graves 's and angelo vestri 's efforts - and straight into bone.

Its twisted expression is a facsimile of the real thing, bound to haunt instead of live. It fades like Angelo's ghost before it, gone for now, but the rage of it lingers.

"Everyone okay?"

Rock rises upwards on all sides around them. From the corner of her eyes, Skyler notices an unusual pattern on it, pulsing with light. Broken.

prompts:
- spirits messing with her and using her to distract angelo vestri pt. 3
- engage in battle with the vengeful and vestigial spirit of moltres or victini
- finally notices the broken seal, no longer being distracted by dead!angelo
angelo vestri Gunner Graves Caleb Harcourt

☉

"Damned if I know. Being chained to this place doesn't fill me with hope for the cuddly kind of critter." Skyler studies the broken sygil, following the cracks spiderwebbing across the rock. "Might've made its way to Hoenn already, for all we know."

Whatever it'd been, it hadn't stuck around long enough for them to get a glimpse of it. And with the ground awash in perpetual mist, it becomes nigh on impossible to track anything.

Fingers dig into blonde locks out of frustration. By her side, Angelo's own tension mirrors her own - a restless energy simmering just under the surface. She'd had her own misgivings about coming here, and whatever treasures they brought back now would inevitably remind her of milky blue eyes, and of a forgiveness she didn't deserve.

Twisting to reach something from her backpack, Skyler reveals a long measure of rope. "I take it no one's against a failsafe. Just to make sure we don't get separated again."

From somewhere in the mists, she thinks she hears the ghost of a familiar voice. Her mouth twists into grim determination.

When she starts tying them together, it becomes abudantly clear that she hadn't really been asking.

l3go4tgl

prompts:
- studies broken seal
- alright people, time to go!
angelo vestri Gunner Graves Caleb Harcourt

☉