They were called back to Dewford suddenly and with haste. Rayquaza and their chosen nearly crashed onto the wide street in front of the docks. The horizon is lit aflame with bright orange and reds, partially from the fire Rayquaza had set to the beach to end their battle against the stag.

The dragon breathed heavy and Eva was clearly frantic but composed. A war was familiar to her, but this single night made Kanto feel like child’s play, “The medpack, damn it! Get over here,” she barked out. One of the pokemon she had left here to help with the relief effort waddled over with it. She cradled one arm against her stomach, using the other the tear open the medpack and spill its contents across the cobblestone. She firmly gripped a thick syringe and stumbled back over to the discolored patch of scales; pale, nearly white. Her one good arm rose and slammed down against the serpent’s armor. With a hiss, the ICE HEAL injected its contents into the pokemon’s musculature. The dragon roared in pain, not from the stick of the needle, but the alarming burn of the frozen scales, ”ANOTHER!” The Blissey obliged, handing her Ice Heals until she had sufficiently treated the massive pokemon’s wounds.

A deep breath shot a sharp pain through her side. She slumped against Rayquaza, breathing rhythmically through the pain. She spun around to face the dwindling crates of supplies left on the dock. This was the last of The League’s medical resources. The fact that had needed to use nearly everything they brought over, was heartbreaking. The Blissey bathed her in HEAL PULSE but she shooed it away to care for the dragon first.

Rayquaza peeled their golden eyes up to the sky, their forked tongue tasting a familiar scent in the air. Eva was fading, but the gentle rumble of the guardian drew her attention up. Freya.

The draconid looked worse off than Eva. She shoved herself up with one arm and limped over to the medpack. A Chansey was already waddling over with a lukewarm bottle of water to hand up to the dragon rider. Eva used her only good arm to toss a HYPER POTION towards Freya, but it was her off hand so it could have missed entirely, “Life dew,” she commanded between deep breaths. The Chansey complied, summoning a soothing rain to fall on all of them.

---

freya morningstar


+50 for participation in battle/mission
+10 per IC post (1)
+10 assist another character/pokemon

=70 MP

freya reaches with shaking hands, tearing the water bottle away from the chansey. she fumbles with the cap, fingers slick with blood and grime, and eventually resolves to twist it open with her teeth. the plastic cap is spit into the ground and she drinks greedily. small rivulets of it run down her gored face. two smaller, easily missed lines are carved from the corners of her eyes. 

half the bottle is drained, the one eye not swollen shut so fixated on this small drop of paradise, that she doesn't notice eva throw the hyper potion at her. 

it knocks her in the side of the head and she startles, sputtering her precious water with a mangled half-growl in her throat. but then she comes to her senses and harumphs as she painfully squats to pick it up. 

words are hard. her throat is ringed with purple bruises. her good eye's bloodshot to hell with a burst vein on the left of her iris. but her dragons have never needed her tongue for commands. theirs work just fine. 

so she hisses lowly and ori falls to his side, breathing hard. the hyper potion cap is ripped off and she hunkers down, spraying the acrid wound in his ribs. the potion does its best to knit together what it can, but only time and rest can undo ori's pain. 

rain patters over them suddenly and freya tilts her chin up. her shoulders fall, arms go lax, and she whispers something to the air. and then she sighs. 

"we're even," she breathes out. she wants to get to her feet to face them. she wants to stand tall, to stand proud in the face of the patron dragon, but the tension is leaking out of her. the last of her fight finally ebbs away. 

Eva Morales

☉

"Shit," Eva winced as the potion struck Freya's already bruised and beaten head, "Sorry."

Eva crumpled beneath the soothing rain as she hobbled back over to Rayquaza, half crawling, half walking. Again, she collapsed with her back to the dragon. The pale scales were starting to gain their color again as the Ice Heals did their work. The emerald dragon stirred, arching their wide cranium to view the battered Freya now standing beside their mount. A deep greeting, almost a purr, was passed in greeting to both of them.

The finger of one hand gently curled under the seam of her torn top to reveal the dark black, purple, and blue splatter of a deep bruise against her ribs, “Fuck,” she gently groaned, lowering the shirt back over her broken ribs.

A tired emerald gaze drifted back over to the blonde. An exhausted chuckle breath past her lips, “Nah, I still owe you,” she managed. She motioned for Freya to join her beside Rayquaza while the Chansey tended to her dragon’s wounds with a focused HEAL PULSE.

---

freya morningstar


+50 for participation in battle/mission
+10 per IC post (2)
+10 assist another character/pokemon

=80 MP

later, under the hands of KING WAYLAND, she will learn that she had not sealed her wounds in their entirety. she will feel the blood on her shirt, but she will think it the rain. she will feel nothing but that burning, awful heat under metal. pink trickles out from under her armor, staining the ground. some of it's hers. most of it isn't.

"barely felt it," she mutters back at eva's apology.

ori gives a shudders. she reaches for her pouch, still woozy, and sifts through a number of pokeballs on her person that could get her fined to hell and back. she finally withdraws his and pulls him back into his ball. 

with him returned, she finally gets a good look at their happenstance companions. her pulse thuds in her ears as she looks upon the dragon. eva pats the ground beside her and freya visibly hesitates.

she gathers herself and limps over to eva, tumbling beside her when she gets close. she bumps her shoulder, apologizes because her armor probably doesn't feel very good to be bumped against. despite her blunder, the way her muscles aren't working at all like they should, she is so tense and so, so careful about leaning back against the dragon.

a hand comes up, fingers curled, knuckles grazing the warm green scales.

she swallows thickly. "why do you make it...so hard to hate you, morales?"

Eva Morales

☉

In all honesty, Eva isn’t surprised she barely felt it (unless she was joking). Freya’s face was likely numb with adrenaline at this point.

Rayquaza doesn’t shift, but only rises its head up to peer around to see the first rays of morning's light peeking over the horizon of the Hoennian sea. It was still far from over, the war, but they survived what would likely be the most violent scene compared to what is to come. Both avatar and deity watch as Freya hobbles over to lean against them. As soon as she is beside Eva, the dragon’s tail curls to enclose them protectively.

Eva grunts involuntarily when Freya’s sharp armor strikes her shoulder. Thankfully, it was the ‘good’ shoulder right now. The other was still firmly out of its socket and quite useless.

Another, breathy chuckle rattles her throat. The professor’s head rocks to look at Freya. Though her eyes remain wide open, she has a clear gash across her jaw and a firm swelling from the strike. A dried blood paints a dark red line from the left brow to her cheek, “It’s not for a lack of trying,” she’s joking, obviously. Eva Morales has never tried to make anyone hate her in her life, “Why do you try to hate me?” her voice drops to just above a whisper when she asks, her words dripping with both curiosity and a sorrowful tone that reflects what she feels in her heart: she just wants to be loved, but love abandoned her.

---

freya morningstar


+50 for participation in battle/mission
+10 per IC post (3)
+10 assist another character/pokemon

=90 MP

freya gives the woman a once-over, acknowledging her scars from battle. they're a sorry sight, the two of them. as her rapturous hand lowers from the deity, they shift. their tail curls around them and they are protected. they are held. she is held. she is protected. in so many less words, she is saved. 

"because i don't want to hate myself." her voice cracks and she wants to snap the words back out of the air before they can reach eva's ears. but she can't, and instead she turns her cheek, breath stilling because if she exhales again, the wet warmth flooding pale eyes will spill. and it will be ugly and it will hurt.

guilt wriggles in her belly. where ori's body had lain are her things - her pouch of pokeballs, her bow, and her quiver. within that busted up metal mechanism is something wrapped in cloth, a muted green light radiating off of it.

death isn't always the answer. 

is she not still pretending? is she not wrapping herself in the guise of the woman beside her? thinking herself peacemaker, ridding the world of a blight to save them all from infection. 

are you sure you weren't meant to be a rocket?

she says the words she hadn't been able to say to her before, back in her cottage: "i'm sorry, for what you've been through."

Eva Morales

☉

This one short night has wrecked havoc on them all. Too many lives had been lost, not enough of them saved. It shouldn’t have occurred in the first place. The anomalies, Rocket, the drk triad are a plague on their region. Rayquaza’s role is to bring balance, a balance that eliminates warfare. Eva has a reverence for life. Each one snuffed out is potential lost, a soul denied the chance to truly do something special. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t sitting here, mulling over her catastrophic failures. Their failures. It weighed heavy on the dragon’s heart too.

She has no idea what Freya had been through over the last 24 hours, but she is sure it was utter hell. Eva wishes she had something positive to say, or advice she could bestow on the woman to erase her self-loathing, but she doesn’t. It would be hypocritical because Eva too was learning to hate herself.

She wasn’t enough for the man she loved.

She compromised League security by failing to recognize the rat right under her nose.

She was too late to save too many lives.

She failed to protect Hoenn for itself.

A long, weary sigh hissed out from between her lips. She leaned her head back on the hard scales of the dragon. A golden eye came into view, peering down at them, “I don’t think hating others would stop us from hating ourselves,” she tried to hate MATIAS SILPH and PENELOPE LIVY for what they did, bryan delarosa for merely existing, declan walsh for encouraging a war, and every single Rocket for their sins against humanity. But it didn’t change a damned thing. She’s still alone, and Hoenn is still suffering, no matter how much hate she puts out into the world or how much blame she forces on herself.

Eva’s hand absentmindedly reaches over to take Freya’s if she’d allow it, simply to just feel a human touch that wasn’t trying to kill her, to remind herself she isn’t completely alone, “I’m sorry too . . .” she speaks to more than just Freya, to everyone she’s failed. She keeps her gaze fixed up at dark morning sky, “We all deserve better.”

---

freya morningstar


+50 for participation in battle/mission
+10 per IC post (4)
+10 assist another character/pokemon

=100 MP

ignorant to eva's own suffering (although maybe not entirely), freya still clings tenaciously to the idea that this woman is undeniably better than her. a better woman with the strength to fight honestly and justly. and angry, too, that it isn't working - all around them is suffering. corruption and timeless infighting. 

"it doesn't," she agrees, feeling that much smaller as rayquaza's head looms over them. she holds that yellow gaze as long as she can until heat crawls up the back of her neck, head hanging.

eva reaches for her. her shoulders stiffen, vision flickering to watch the professor's hand fold over her own. freya's fingers lift and fit into the grooves of eva's own, knitting gently together. 

"not all of us." fingers tighten. will you forgive me? will you still think me deserving when i've ended his life?

and then she leans closer, shoulder shrugging against her - gently, so as not to pinch her with her armor - and lays her cheek upon her side. teeth grit. jaw flexes.

"they were right to choose you, you know."

Eva Morales

☉

Her hand finds acceptance, and without resistance a sense of comfort. Their fingers lock and Eva keeps her gaze trainer up towards the dragon’s looming stare. A subtle pressure tightens around her fingers, and she finally shifts her gaze back over to Freya. She can sense the doubt in her voice, the implication that hse is one of those someones that doesn’t deserve better. That’s not what Eva believes at all, especially for Freya, “You do,” she confirms for her.

Eva allows her head to fall to her shoulder. She can’t imagine it is comfortable but that’s not the concern at the moment. The blonde head falls as well and her cheek rests upon Freya’s crusted hair. Is it blood? Sweat? Some other strange substance from the Ultra Deep Sea? Who cares. They’re both a mess.

For a moment, her gaze flicks back up to Rayquaza who seems to be tracing the horizon once more. She takes a deep, jagged, painful breath, “I don’t know,” she says softly. She doesn’t doubt Rayquaza’s choice, but she still fails to see the big picture, “They’re so powerful and fierce and … regal,” a god with the confidence to match. They knew their purpose and were unwavering in their certainty, “And I’m, well, me,” her shoulder shrugs lightly beneath Freya’s head, “I wouldn’t call myself any of those things let alone worthy of a god like them,” the insecurities that have stemmed from recent events have left her uncertain, timid in her choices, lost without a purpose, and lacking the confidence necessary to be worthy of anything greater than simply her name. Was she even deserving of that?

---

freya morningstar


+50 for participation in battle/mission
+10 per IC post (5)
+10 assist another character/pokemon

=110 MP

freya doesn't bother fighting a moot point, even if eva is wrong about her. it feels wrong to lead her on like this, to let her think better of her than she really is. the murder weapon meant for her ex is sitting neatly ten feet away from her. 

whatever words she thought about saying die in her throat as eva starts talking again. 

she can feel her jaw moving. distantly, freya realizes this is the closest she's ever allowed herself to be with someone, outside of king. her touches with others are scant things. she's never quite known how to exist so closely to someone. 

"i would," she says and makes a noise in the back of her throat. "and i think that's what makes you the peacemaker. you asked them for help because you couldn't stand the thought of the genocide of an entire civilization, one that's made itself clear to be our enemy." she coughs and it wracks her whole body. 

"i envy you, eva. not because they chose you - because of who you are." with that omission, she can't stand it any longer. she extracts herself slowly and shakily tries to get to her feet. her left leg buckles and scaled armor scrapes scales. her hands spread on rayquaza's warm side. face hidden, for a moment, it scrunches. she leaves blood and sweat, and tears, on the dragon's side when she finally rights herself.

"now get up and fight."

Eva Morales

☉

Even as the words drifted out of her mouth and out into the open, she didn’t feel like she, herself, was saying them. They’re fears that have plagued her thoughts for quite some time and recent events only gave them more purchase. This was the first time she was putting her fears out into the open for someone else to hear. There was a small weight lifted off her shoulders, but the heavy doubt remained firmly clasped to her like a parasite. Eventually, it would suck her dry.

The professor's head shifts slightly to let her eyes divert down to the top of Freya’s head, “You would?” she repeats with mild astonishment. Freya was one of the last people she expected to share such sentiments. She could sense they were genuine. As much as she doubted herself in the moment, she had no words to combat Freya’s. It felt wrong to squash such vulnerability with her own negativity. Eva wasn’t the same person she was when she sought out Rayquaza, but that Eva was down there somewhere. Simply buried beneath a mountain of ash made of burnt bridges by those that had betrayed her and the failures she constructed on her own.

Ignoring the sharp pain, an arm reaches out to catch Freya when she stumbles, but it’s unnecessary. She finds purchase in the scales that brought them together. What should be defeated emerald eyes blink up at Freya as she looms over her. She was right. The fight wasn’t over - nowhere close to being over. Even after the battles ended and they found themselves on the other end of this war, there was still plenty of work to be done. Hoenn was still unstable and threats greater than Rocket loomed over the vulnerable region.

With a short nod, Eva leaned against the dragon’s scales and used them to pull herself up to her feet, “And you’ll fight with us?”

---

freya morningstar


+50 for participation in battle/mission
+10 per IC post (6)
+10 assist another character/pokemon

=120 MP

neither of them are in fighting condition, but freya has gone through hell and back. her pride, already so fragile, struggles when eva asks her if she'll fight alongside her. she grits her teeth and touches the flaking copper on her armor.

"i've done what i can." a pause. "but i will." in the future, yes. always. and eva might not understand it yet; too hurt is her heart to see truth in freya's inevitable actions. she might hate her, she might think it a knife in her back, but it's not. it's not. 

i think i will always fight with you.

when eva stumbles up to her feet, freya's eyes harden. she closes the distance between the two of them, tentatively reaching a hand out to eva's useless arm. warm breath on her face, the space between them closing and suddenly intimate, a hot fire on the back of freya's neck, and she says intensely, "grit your teeth. i'm setting it."

Eva Morales

☉

The question doesn’t stem from the necessity to protect their precious medical cargo, it breaches the boundaries far beyond that. Even after tonight, the battle isn’t over. Hoenn still remains threatened beyond even Rayquaza’s comprehension. This is a pivotal time in their ancient history and a turning point in the region’s survival. They would need Freya’s help time and time again, even if they don’t ask for it.

Eva believes that she will fight with them. She blinks beyond the blur of the tears in her eyes. They aren’t there because of pain or joy, only from the irritation felt by the sting of salty sweat and the swell that slowly grows along her cheek. But it is at that moment that she finally doesn’t feel alone. Despite it all, Freya hadn’t abandoned them, and Eva finds a sliver of hope that she never will.

As Freya moves closer, Eva’s grip around the scale that holds her up tightens. She accepts the intimacy and bathes in the other’s warm breath. Her emerald eyes scan the woman’s features in search of an intention, and when it is voiced, she nods.

She pulls the blue bandana down to wedge between her teeth then grips her patron again. Shifting to present Freya with her left arm, she squeezes her eyes shut, ready for the inevitable pain.

---

freya morningstar


+50 for participation in battle/mission
+10 per IC post (7)
+10 assist another character/pokemon

=130 MP