Tsutsuji is a blade cutting through the air. Completely silent, as the night itself.

A few wing beats and she's already crossed the cavern, nearly atop her prey. A fearsome nocturnal predator in her natural habitat, pouncing from the skies.

You prepare to connect, a fire burning in your chest. There's a righteous flame burning with indignation, there at the core of your being. It is there that all of the pent up anger, frustration, and anguish comes pouring out with a scream.

"AAAAAAAAAAHH!!"

You anticipate closing that distance. Cleaving her in two, turning the both of you into monsters. The same as those you're fighting.

But it never comes. The barely perceptible chill grows more intense, battling the fire that burns inside. You immediately recognize it as the presence of a ghost-type pokemon, wrapped itself around Tsutsuji, holding her there. She's halted her advance.

It's a split-second decision.

As Tsutsuji flaps her wings once and summons a storm. Winds that shred the bind holding her in place, blades made of the air itself.

You rise to your feet and step off of your Noivern's shoulder, to deliver a right hook straight at the stranger's jaw. What she says hardly registers, so consumed with your fury that you can't hardly contain it.

"Shut! Up! Don't say another word!"

Your voice is the rage and sorrow of a wasted youth, the hurt of the deepest betrayal you could possibly imagine. All of the raw emotion you've swallowed over the years, erupting at once.

"The pain you've delivered on the world, come back to haunt you! That's who I am, that's all I'll ever be!"

Up close enough you can see her face in the dark. Your heart pangs with sadness as your realize she's roughly the same age as you. Like looking into a reflection, at what might have been, had you not had that fateful night where the trajectory of your life changed completely.

If she was still here, what might she think of that, huh?

---

Tsutsuji (Noivern) used Air Slash!

BATTLE
+20 MP

She blocks the punch with her arm, but it doesn't matter. You're already winding up for the next.

She sweeps her foot in your direction, but it's deftly dodged. Only puts you off balance a little. The difference between a delinquent and a trained martial artist.

"Don't play dumb!"

You shout it out as you thrust your fist forward, a trained motion that leaves little time for a counter. A punch to the gut aiming to knock the air out of her body.

"Wherever you cause people pain!"

Another punch.

"Wherever you steal people and pokemon!"

And another.

"Wherever you threaten and bribe and kill!"

And another.

You're letting the venom seep in. All the anger and the hatred you feel coming to the surface all at once. It's something you'd contained so deep inside all these years, but for the fact that you haven't seen anybody like this in months, ever since you arrived on that boat... now that you dropped the facade, it's never going back up. Instead, you just let it all spill out...

"... I've been there! The whole time!"

You turn, aiming a kick at her head.

There's nothing on your mind but anger. Anger at this girl, for belonging to this cause that abandoned you, chewed you up and spit you out. Anger at the world, for letting an organization like that exist in the first place. Anger at yourself, for letting it all happen, for letting all of this happen to her.

... So much that you decline to notice Tsutsuji.

She's violently clawing the air, trying to fight the lights surrounding her. She's blind as a bat, but the frequencies are so overwhelming, they're hard to ignore. She bites, and claws, and manages to strike true only once. Clawing at her own face with her hind leg, leaving a bloody gauge in her skin.

She growls enough to make your ears pop, the pressure in the cave growing and falling so suddenly.

---

Tsutsuji (Noivern) hurt herself in her confusion!

BATTLE
+30 MP

"Tch!"

You feel nothing.

Your kick doesn't connect, but it doesn't need to. The punches were enough to be able to tell. All of that pent up venom overflowing now, it's utterly senseless. A pointless endeavor. Something you thought you needed to do until you were there, and felt nothing at all.

How sweet, the fruit of revenge, and yet it doesn't sate you quite the same way if you're just attacking some random girl. She is probably just like you, pulled into this mess, dragged in over her head.

This is nothing but an act of self-mutilation.

"Right there...!"

You bring your foot down atop her head, a crushing blow with all your strength. You wanna see her flattened, squeeze every bit of malice out of her, til there's nothing left. Til she's just as empty as you.

And yet, you're constrained. Your kick doesn't connect. Confined by a shadow, icy cold. Lifted from the ground, grasped by disembodied hands.

Tsutsuji roars.

She does not know what she is fighting anymore, she just hates this. The bondage, the yoke put upon her by forces beyond her control. She is a beast that must live free, must be set into the black expanse and fly forever, until she can't fly anymore. The hands, the body swirled around her, she detests them more than anything, just as her last encounter with rockets before she met you.

And now that she sees you in that same predicament...

She flaps her wings wildly. Lets out an explosive shockwave with a roar. She stirs up a storm within the cavern, stirring nature itself to rebellion against her captor.

---

Tsutsuji (Noivern) is confused!
Tsutsuji (Noivern) used Whirlwind!

BATTLE
+40 MP

Wind cuts through even a shadow.

You grimace, torn away from your prey before you can really sink you fangs in. You balk at that, thrown off. You're so used to the taste of blood, you're suffering withdrawal from even the notion that you'd be deprived.

"Can't play fair, can you?"

You smile.

A wicked smile at the thought of melting her down, savoring that taste as you digest ever last morsel. There isn't a bone in your body that doesn't want that. Your blood screams in your veins as you realize she can't get away, can't escape without playing dirty tricks. It's the crafty expertise of a prey animal, doing what it can to survive when it's backed into a corner.

It's so good.

"No matter..."

You raise your fists again into the ever-familiar pose, seared into your very spirit by repetition alone. A form of boxing from an eastern region, exported here hundreds of years ago. The one thing your father ever gave you, insisted that you learn because pokemon cannot protect you from everything.

It's served you well in defying everything he ever stood for.

Meanwhile, Tsutsuji swoops in close, rocketing overhead. In a flash of brilliant light, another dragon is loosed on the battlefield. It stands between you and your quarry, and the sound wave pokemon wastes no time. There is nothing to be confused about. There is movement, and she responds accordingly. She opens her mouth and delivers a massive shockwave like an explosion, to match the Garchomp's advance.

It does not halt that body, an advancing wall. It cannot manage that much. And yet, it should reverberate through that tough hide, scramble everything inside, bypassing its natural armor entirely, before the collision.

A collision like a meteoric impact.

A soft target, in all truth, Tsutsuji is not nearly a physical wall so much as an agile ambush hunter. She balks, before taking the brunt of the force, all of that power coursing through her.

She's helpless against it, and the crunch is sickening.

---

Tsutsuji (Noivern) is confused!
Tsutsuji (Noivern) used Boomburst!

BATTLE
+50 MP

Tsutsuji crumples as she's thrown up against a moving wall.

This dragon is superior in nearly every aspect, one of the finest specimens you've ever seen. As it tears through the sky with a terrifying sonic boom, Tsu can't contest its raw strength or momentum. All she can do is tear at it, fighting for her life.

Fangs, talons, claws. Scattering frequencies that aim to rupture organs in the body, desperately searching for one that'll disable this monster. But she can't find it fast enough, even as she scans up and down the dial. She's a master of reconnaissance, brutality in the dark, a fierce wind.

But she is up against a monster that rides the winds as a matter of course, a monster that can't be stopped by even an explosion that rocks its core. It crushes her completely, opens its tremendous jaw to crush her utterly and completely. She's helpless in such close quarters. Cannot stand up against it, no matter how hard she tries.

Her body goes flying, skidding along the dark of the cavern floor. Grasping desperately for traction, before all her strength leaves her.

The glint of the knife in the trainer's hands is a reminder, these dregs hardly play fair.

That's fine, you think. Neither do you.

A smirk, as you approach. You wind your hand back as if you're getting ready to let loose a punch, a step forward ready to disarm her.

And then, you release a handful of poison-gas pellets from your opposite hand, packed into your jacket for such an occasion. They're choking, acidic. Burn the lining of one's throat, the membranes in one's eyes. A cloud of glittering neon-violet meant to disorient and confuse.

"Gotcha...!"

You get a single chance to turn back, recall Tsutsuji into her Pokeball before this monster can finish the job. She's done well, but today is not the day she dies.

A flash of blinding light in the dark, and a scream like a whale fills the cavern. Raw stench of a poison that makes your heart feel sick, you ready yourself. Bracing for the impact, wary of the power you wield now.

"Shion... take care of Garchomp!"

You say it, but you know that her lust for violence has already drawn her to it. That she would not obey if not for that. She is a terrifying creature through and through, a tsunami pulling water back from the shore before it raises to the heavens.

You'll ride that poison wave to victory, heaven permit.

---

Tsutsuji (Noivern) fainted!
Go, Shion (Dragalge)!

BATTLE
+60 MP

You flinch, much as you loathe to admit it.

Thought you'd seen some shit, though you've been in the middle of what feels like war zones for several years, there's still that visceral reaction to that kind of noise, something that ripples through your whole body. You step back, quickly feel your gut for any wounds before you can focus on the action again.

Must've been a fake out.

Shion roars, filling the cavern with a droning song like a whale. Here underground those cries that travel miles reverberate around the cavern walls and grow more intense, til you can hardly hear yourself think.

But you don't need to think, you just need to move.

Watching Garchomp race over, smash itself into the ground, you brace for impact. Shion readies her whole body, every poisonous quill on her body standing on edge, so unalike the seaweed it mimics. She prepares to take that impact head on, and then follow through.

"No, you idiot...!"

You scream out, but it's too late.

This headstrong pokemon will be the death of you. Nearly has been so many times already. She takes the brunt of it. The earth cracks in half, but she stands firm, resisting it all. She's a wall that stands between you and your opponent's attacks. More out of coincidence than anything else, you think.

But before she can retaliate, before you can offer her a command, the cracks in the earth give way.

You're falling. Falling deep into the trench that's opened up below. You can't see anything beneath you, and so you reach for her, for your trusted pokemon, as you both hurtle into the abyss.

---

BATTLE
+70 MP