[attr="class","post"]
[attr="class","tag"]
rusted shield (MOTOSTOKE)
True to her word (and
Isaac Merlo’s summary
belief in it),
Aurelie Lefevre’s defenses hold. Cyg is rather focused on the giant, sentient garbage heap belching in her face, but she can hear the way the countless masses squelch and slip against the barricade, the torrent of it rising in a fever pitch the longer it goes on.
[break][break]
From all angles, trainers attack; the earth shakes and quivers, Cyg’s knees knocking together as she struggles to say standing. The Garbodor responds with a putrid wave of noxious ooze that makes her gag and cover her nose with the crook of her arm, eyes watering.
“God, this thing smells worse than Slateport in summer.” [break][break]
MATIAS SILPH cuts a swathe through the miasma and behind him contrails of wind pull and shape the gas. Cyg finds a sparse pocket and sucks down a breath, silently thanking the madman for his contribution; something goes flying in her peripherals and she’s forced back into the fumes as chunks of building rain down around her, narrowly missing her and causing the ground to pitch and heave.
“FUCK!” [break][break]
Undulating uncannily like liquid, the Garbodor subsumes the train station-- but then a strong magenta aura surrounds it as Kanaya forces it back and brings it to heel, the innate Virgo inside of her reeling in disgust at the
state of things.
Caleb Harcourt’s earthquake makes it so Cyg has to get out of dodge yet
again, and she’s separated from Kanaya, briefly, by the writhing of the city streets.
[break][break]
Kanaya raises her hands and brings her gentle fingers together and the
psychic contracts, slicing through the Garbodor like a knife through hot butter. In quick succession,
Aurelie Lefevre and
Isaac Merlo also attack it; pinions of earth stab straight through it.
“Oh, look at that,” Cyg says, breathless from the effort of dodging, jumping, and inhaling smog,
“it’s been impaled.” [break][break]
Punctured and leaking, the gigantamax effect is shattered, causing the Garbodor to shrink and faint to normal size to the ground below.
[break][break]
“Fucking A--,” Cyg says, sliding down a newly-made slope to stand next to
Isaac Merlo,
“did we do it?” [break][break]
There’s a series of pops, like a whole carnival’s worth of balloons imploding, and then suddenly there are people in Renaissance dress
everywhere, swarming out of the woodwork like Durant over rotten fruit.
[break][break]
Cyg turns to hug and congratulate Isaac but then there’s a jostling of petticoats and elbows and she’s been pushed back and back and back until she’s spat out of the swarm. She stumbles and is caught by Kanaya, who has since shifted back to her normal state. Her Gardevoir lifts her to standing and gives her a curt nod, signifying they did, in fact, do it.
[break][break]
“Ok, well… what the fuck do we do now?” [break][break]
THE FIRST MONTH
[break][break]
The first month is hard. Cyg spends most of her time confused as to why people aren’t trying harder to get back
home. There’s nothing for them, here; just a weird prophecy and a city that needs rebuilding, but it isn’t
hers. She resolves to stay out of it as much as possible, because she’s read this book before, and forming any connections just makes it harder to leave.
[break][break]
Elisabeth Fiorelli seeks her out and Cyg tries hard to rectify the Elisa she knows and loves with the one that stands before her now.
[break][break]
Perhaps the most damning change is that she chooses willingly to hang out with
BARNABY FINCH and seems, even, to enjoy his company. Cyg doesn’t share the sentiment.
[break][break]
It’s hard. She wants to support Elisa and loves her dearly, and she knows that if
anyone deserves to have their villainess moment, it’s Elisabeth Fiorelli. But this… sinister aura of resentment isn’t doing her any favors. She’s tried so hard to move
beyond her inner feelings of jealousy and spite, and this just seems to be sucking her back in.
[break][break]
It fucking sucks. She owes Elisabeth
everything.
[break][break]
To add insult to injury,
Isaac Merlo is a king, now; his priorities are shifting, again, and he, once more, is put on a path where he gets to succeed and do what he’s best at, which is caring about people. That’s not her fucking cup of tea. He certainly doesn’t
need her to do it. Besides, he has
Caleb Harcourt, who is more than capable of keeping Isaac safe and guiding him out of trouble.
[break][break]
So there’s more than one night where she cries herself to sleep with a pillow over her face to muffle her screams as she seeks to escape this twisted
Game of Thrones fantasy.
[break][break]
THE FIRST YEAR
[break][break]
There’s only so long you can spend feeling sorry for yourself. Cyg’s funk doesn’t last too long before she’s out in the world trying to
do something. She isn’t the kind of person that will run herself into the ground trying to be better, of course, but if she spends any more time wallowing she’ll fucking kill herself.
[break][break]
Elisabeth Fiorelli does some classic fucked up shit but just, like. It’s not even. Clever enough to be worthy of Elizabeth. It’s just a maddened and power hungry grasp at relevance, and the mask of reverence is ripped forcibly off of Cygne’s eyes as she stands there and is, once more, handed Elisabeth’s sloppy seconds.
[break][break]
“Sure, yeah. Love a good train.” [break][break]
She takes it because she knows she can do something with it. It’s kind of the same thing she’s doing with
Zev Harcourt, playing the idiot savant to get what she wants, taking the discarded parts of whatever evil machinations the Big Brains are working on and building them up to something better. It’s her own sort of manipulation, though rooted in something decidedly less sinister.
[break][break]
So she runs the trains and begins to patch things up as best she can, improving the engines from the guttered old smog-belchers to as sleek and efficient as is possible with the technology available to her. She fixes the stations and the tracks and gets things more or less back on schedule to make for ease of transportation of people and supplies. She dedicates particularly fast and quick runners specifically for medical aid and the movement of the injured away from dangerous spots.
[break][break]
Isaac Merlo, to absolutely no one’s fucking surprise, is an excellent king. He’s kind, intelligent, creative, gentle, bright, all the good, sappy adjectives that make her heart hurt with how much she loves him.
Caleb Harcourt, on the other hand, seemed more uncomfortable than anything, so Cyg tried to help him out, too, by bringing him in on some of her less brainy projects and teaching him about, like, trains, and shit.
[break][break]
“Engines are like penises,” she assured him,
“ simple. And once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” [break][break]
The boys bring her in as an advisor (and also she’s sleeping with one of them, there’s that bit) but she likes to think she’s helpful when it comes to infrastructure planning, defensive tactics, and adding just a little bit of Cygne flair in here and there where she can. (When she’s smithing with
Aurelie Lefevre, her own artist’s mark is the Autobot insignia.)
[break][break]
Elisabeth Fiorelli’s devolution into an island hag does wonders for Cyg’s own sense of isolation and she begins to seek out the likeminded in order to learn and grow. She works with
Aurelie Lefevre to learn metallurgy and blacksmithing, and the two trade knowledge in order to better each other and become, Cyg thinks, good friends.
[break][break]
She makes herself a whole fucking bunch of swords because swords are fucking dope. She fucking makes a sword for everyone she can think of.
[break][break]
With Aurelie’s help, Cyg begins to branch into the medical field, designing and building prosthetics for people: with less technology and fewer resources, it’s limited to arms and legs, but she does, at the very least, nail down the patent for how she’s going to replace her foot and ankle if or when they ever get home.
[break][break]
Eventually, though, she has to choose. And it rips her in half. But she chooses with her health, her hope, and her heart.
[break][break]
She shows up at the castle on a day when the kings are holding court and bullies her way through the swarm of people, common and noble alike, and lays her sword-- a hand-and-a-halfer with a vined crossguard and hilt and pommel engraved with dahlias-- at
Isaac Merlo’s feet.
[break][break]
“‘Till all are one.” [break][break]
TEN YEARS
[break][break]
Things fall into a similar sort of monotony that they’d had at home. Cyg begins to think that maybe it’s just a byproduct of being alive.
[break][break]
Roughly two years in she asks Isaac if he would ever like to get married.
[break][break]
“I know it’s, like, probably not a priority,” she says, one arm looped around his shoulders as they’re puzzled together in his hotel-castle bed,
“and I’m definitely not fucking trying to be a queen. But I love you and at this point I don’t really see myself feeling some kinda way about anyone else. Ever.” [break][break]
She’d spent much of her life not ever planning on getting married, because the idea of it was old-fashioned, and the thought of conducting a wedding seemed
so stressful. But a royal wedding is a glorious affair: it instills the people with strength and hope for the future, and as the queen-to-be, she has no end of resources to help plan. Turns out, autumn in Galar is a spectacular season for an outside event, and her one condition is a dress train that falls down about eight steps, because she loves a good train.
[break][break]
And it’s right. It’s
right. It’s right.
Cygne Merlo. It has a beautiful ring to it-- and the symbolism? Chef’s kiss.
[break][break]
She makes their rings, with
Aurelie Lefevre’s guidance, because they’re far finer and more important than anything she’s had to make yet. One black steel, one white gold, two halves of a set of spreading wings.
[break][break]
The year after, she’s pregnant. It’s devastating in its own kind of way. A hopeful way. A way that threatens to give her wings and choke the life out of her in the same motion.
[break][break]
She agonizes over what she’s going to do. There’s no
Elisabeth Fiorelli to guide her, anymore. It’s a terrifying notion. No one else from their world seems to be out here doing the domestic grind and repopulating. Obviously, she has to tell Isaac, and she’s
going to, she’s not going to keep this a secret-- but it’s so
scary.
[break][break]
Also, how old is she, again? Thirty-three? Maybe? Something like that? Is her body even going to be able to do this? Maybe she should’ve waited to upgrade her ribs. She can’t imagine they’re super flexible. Oh, god, was that going to be bad for the baby? Was she even going to keep this baby? What if Isaac didn’t want to? What was she going to do then? What the
fuck was she doing?!
[break][break]
So she does the next best thing and finds
Caleb Harcourt.
[break][break]
“I need you to talk me down from this ledge, please.” [break][break]
And he does, because he’s good like that and good
at that, and all she really needed was a little bit of hand holding before she goes and gives Isaac the big news-- which she needn’t have panicked about at all, of course, because he jumps in with both feet and his whole heart.
[break][break]
And it’s okay, and will
be okay, in the end, Cyg realizes, for the first time in, maybe, ever. Things will be okay in the end.
[break][break]
So. Pregnancy.
“The single most terrifying thing I’ve ever had to do,” she regularly tells Isaac. The single most
frustrating thing she’s ever had to do, too, because as the months go by she can do less and less of the things she enjoys. No heavy lifting, no forging, no sword fighting, just pissing all the time and regularly praying she doesn’t get prenatal diabetes.
[break][break]
This is the part that’s always scared her. The raising part? The bit where the kid was already formed and out in the world? Cake. The bit where it was a little parasite leeching off of her and pressing down on her organs? Torture. Misery.
“I’m doing the next one in a test tube,” she would groan into the cool of the bathroom floor, wracked by morning sickness and hobbled by the swell of her stomach.
[break][break]
But she carries it to term and a week, which is a glorious victory in and of itself. And though she’s anxious beyond all belief for the actual delivery, when it comes down to it in the end, no epidural and nine months of pent-up frustration put the nerves on the backburner. The little one comes out pink, screaming, and already,
frighteningly blonde.
[break][break]
“God, we did so good,” she mumbles, half passed out and bone-tired exhausted as she cradles the sleeping infant and Isaac in the same bed.
[break][break]
Unsurprisingly, Isaac is a great father. And Cyg is (maybe also unsurprisingly?) a great mother. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that a relationship built on strong mutual love and respect bordering on reverence should transition rather seamlessly into parenthood. There are bumps, of course: Cyg gets hit with a particularly nasty strand of the postpartums that present demons she actively has to battle for months and months. Isaac now has to balance being a dad, a husband, a king, a hero, and a warrior, all in one. And there’s the lingering question of what happens if they ever do go back that Cyg thinks of every time she looks at their child that certainly isn’t helping her depression any.
[break][break]
But after a year or so, the ship rights itself and the sailing gets smoother and smoother. The little girl’s name is Sabrina (Princess Sabrina Ellara Merlo, first of her name, etc etc, if we’re being specific), and she’s loud, rambunctious, and firmly independent, much to the chagrin of her parents and adopted family (
Caleb Harcourt and
Aurelie Lefevre, namely, amongst others who have come to be a part of their little clan). If they’ve told her not to run off and explore the hotel-castle alone once, they’ve told her a trillion times, though it never seems to stop her.
[break][break]
Roughly two years following that-- so five in total, halfway to the end of days, though they wouldn’t know it-- Cyg asks him if he’d like to have another.
[break][break]
“But, like, on purpose, this time?” [break][break]
Princess Two happens with no less pomp, but decidedly less stress. Cyg’s an old pro at this, by now. The gestational heartburn is a bitch, though, coupled with the cravings for fast food that don’t exist in this timeline.
[break][break]
Iris Dahlia Merlo enters the world with
ease compared to the first one, and this time, she’s ready for the postpartum depression; this time, it’s
her beating it up with a bat, and not the other way around.
[break][break]
Parenthood looks good on them, even if it is one of ten thousand things that Isaac has going on; and it is, by no stretch of the imagination, a perfect world. There is danger around many corners. They frequently have to withstand onslaughts of poisoned Pokemon and Gigantamax raids from within the heart of their own city. The girls are quickly taught how to defend themselves and what to do when trouble strikes, as it so often does.
[break][break]
But it
is comfortable, and they
are happy, and before too long, the familial bliss is so strong Cyg almost forgets that life used to be different.
[break][break]
She works the forge with
Aurelie Lefevre, helps plan defenses, runs the train system, and mothers.
[break][break]
“Ian Malcolm was right,” she laughs into Isaac’s hair one night as they’re falling asleep,
“life, uh, finds a way.” [break][break]
She’s on the field when the Necrozma attacks. Over the last ten years her tendency and desire for self-martyrdom has certainly not faded-- if anything, it’s been
fortified now that she’s a mother. She frontlines it along with
Elisabeth Fiorelli and
Caleb Harcourt and some of the other heavy hitters that have been marooned in Motostoke along with her, and she likes to think she gives as good as the Avatars and various other bigwigs, though she doesn’t have a Legendary at her side and wasn’t a member of the long-defunct E4.
[break][break]
They almost lose. Even with everything, they almost lose. And there’s a new fear in her, now, that kindles overnight as she holds her family close and vows to never come this near to the destruction of all she holds dear again.
[break][break]
She grows closer with
Aurelie Lefevre, who almost fills the niche Elisabeth left behind. With the help of some other science types they discover they can use
infinity energy to imbue the dark ore left behind in Necrozma’s wake with Pokemon moves. She and Aurelie quickly set apart learning how to manipulate it, to change and shift it, and the latter becomes INUNDATED with requests for weapons and armor.
[break][break]
“Just use me like a gun,” Cyg tells her on another late forge night,
“point and shoot.” [break][break]
Autobot insignias, everywhere.
[break][break]
“I’m just bummed I don’t have enough ore for a whole mech suit,” she confesses to
Aurelie Lefevre as she helps put the finishing touches on
Caleb Harcourt’s weapon.
[break][break]
Now that her kings are armed, she has enough time to turn to herself.
So many ideas run through her head, and she doesn’t sleep for at least two nights as she works them all out, eventually landing on the
Hammer of Justice: a large, two-handed weapon imbued with the power of
hyper beam. On its own, it was a force to be reckoned with, but when charged, it went off with enough power to level buildings. It was unceremoniously ripped from
League of Legends but also sometimes Cyg felt like she was the only one who remembered any sort of pop culture from the Before Times.
[break][break]
Life continues to advance, despite everything. Every day, the thought of Hoenn, of team Rocket and Fiorelli Floristry and What Once Was fades a little bit more-- or, at least, she forces it to, because paying heed to it means acknowledging that what they have, what they’ve
built, might not be at all real.
[break][break]
And the thought of going home-- what used to power her through her every moment-- suddenly becomes more of a nightmare than anything this memory has thrown at them, yet.
[break][break]
[break][break]
hbGsrFBf
[attr="class","cygshield5ooc"]
NOTES
• jesus hotsauce christmascake. okay so:
• cyg has the espresso depressos for the first little bit. takes over the trains from
Elisabeth Fiorelli after she kills the Old Train Guy. turns it into something better and really helps setting up transport and infrastructure. eventually splits with Elisa resulting in more espresso depressos in favor of King Isaac because, obviously. [break]
• they get married! they have kids! more espresso depressos. [break]
• cyg bonds with aurelie and learns how to smith from her! makes essentially jayce's hammer that is empowered with hyper beam.
[break][break]
Isaac Merlo Aurelie Lefevre Caleb Harcourt Elisabeth Fiorelli 
[break]
Hollow kings did not govern him. Neither did old ties to what was — mask discarded, his allegiance to ROCKET meant little in the wake of their imprisonment here in this altered Galar.[break][break]
There were no roots keeping him on Motostoke's poisoned soil. As the years dragged on, Barnaby did not invest in those around him. No one could hold him down; his place was on the winds, traversing from town to town as the whim struck him. When he tired of one place, he'd move on to the next, carrying missives and letters and important documents with him as he went. After the attack by NECROZMA, he'd even had a recurve bow of MYSTICAL FIRE commissioned to help deter the monsters he ran across in the wilds. A cycle that spanned the decade.[break][break]
A month came and went. A long time. He could hardly believe they were still there. It was the longest op he had ever been involved in.
Some of his friends were fine.
Over 5 years, his healing center had taken on the shape of a monastery. 
For all intents and purposes, he was a doctor. A general practicioner with all the knowledge needed, and several years of field experience under his belt.
