“Looked like a Sneasel, according to someone that happened to be nearby.” One of his favorite Pokemon, although they’re incompatible with his fighting style. “Its chest cavity was ripped open. Usually the ones that wash up from the Ultra Sea are like that. Injured.” [break][break]
They should be dead.[break][break]
That’s what he wants to say, but the words are too absurd to leave his lips. Granite Cave feels chilly. It’s the middle of summer. They’ve a month left before Autumn. It shouldn’t feel that cold. The cave definitely shouldn’t have icicles lining the top of the entrance.[break][break]
“People always underestimate the small ones.” He curses. Voyager pulls back, trots around the two to keep them warm. Navy’s Arcanine exudes warmth, both literally and metaphorically. Navy thanks Arceus for the overlap.[break][break]
“Arceus…there’s wormholes all over the cave. We’d better find her quick.”

[break][break]

+ Gunner Graves

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Voyager drools at the sight of the Blaziken. Navy has no newspaper, so he settles for harsh words.[break][break]
“Stop it. We’re not eating anyone today, Voy.” Maybe it’s his tone, but Voyager’s eyes flit down in obedience, focusing on the task at hand.[break][break]
“Last case like this was back in June. That time it was a Zoroark. One of the weird ones from the distortions.” He informs the other man while he walks. Voyager trots past the wormholes. Using his nose, he tries to offer Caelia a helping hand. Some of them are hidden or not immediately obvious. Voyager and Navy have explored this cave together extensively since May.[break][break]
“Back then it was teenagers. We found most of ‘em dazed on the beach a few days later.” A pause. “Most of them.”[break][break]
Voyager barks at one of the wormholes. It seems the scent goes here. Shivering, Navy goes to the Arcanine and jumps on his back.[break][break]
“…looks like it took her in. Shit.” Pausing, he looks at Gunner. Quietly judges something. Nods.[break][break]
“You’re one hell of a guy. I remember enough about Galar to remember that. All that without saying a word ‘bout Meteno. I usually don’t let people come in with me. Most people can’t raise a Blaziken like this.” Navy urges Voyager through the wormhole.[break][break]
“They can’t be much farther.”[break][break]
And so, once again, he dives into the black sea.

[break][break]

+ Gunner Graves

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

They walk through an undersea world. It is a living, breathing paradox. Though by all logic they are underwater, air fills their lungs. Bubbles filter by. Schools of strange fish pokemon with dead eyes pay them no mind.[break][break]
Far above, the angels called Nihilego sing. Their light filters down through the midnight sea above. These two brave, foolish men have thrown themselves into the black depths of a darkness beyond the understanding of mortal men. Looking to Gunner, Navy smiles.[break][break]
“All I’m tryin’ to say is…intuition tells me I’m lucky to have you watching my back.” Voyager bristles and starts to bark. They really are close. The Arcanine rushes forward into the sea so quickly that Navy almost feels his neck snap.[break][break]
Purple lights grow in the darkness. They grow brighter as Voyager homes in on the girl. A Sneasel grins at them from the darkness. Then another. And another. All dead. All smiling the same grin. All crowned with oozing purple regalia.[break][break]
And at their center, a child. They pay the child no mind. They advance upon Gunner and Navy. They whisper promises that the two of them will never die. They will be welcomed here forever into the folds of the great skeletal dragon.[break][break]
Voyager’s howl puts that notion to rest. As fear seizes Navy, his Pokemon raises his voice. Above them all, a morning sun forms in the sky. The Sneasel shriek, blinded if for but a moment.[break][break]
“Grab the kid!” Navy shouts.

[break][break]

+ Gunner Graves

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

“Thank Arceus.” He intones that genuine prayer upon hearing the good news. Navy turns his eyes upon Voyager, whose attention returns to the Sneasel. With the battlefield clear, his canine companion is free to charge. Fire builds up around him as he dives into their midst. His flare blitz is punctuated by a howl.[break][break]
“Hmm…if Eternatus has decided to make ‘em all poison type…” Navy’s a gym leader. It behooves him to know what Pokemon are weak to what. Turning to Gunner, Navy breaks out in a sprint towards his Salamence. Voyager covers the retreat, biting, clawing, and unleashing flames upon them.[break][break]
“Graves, take us up, I don’t have a flier on me.” Pulling out a pair of pokeballs, he recalls Voyager with one click and throws out another Pokemon with the other. It’s fluid, practiced, like a gunslinger alternating hands as he pulls the trigger on two pistols.[break][break]
Out comes a Pokemon that anyone who knows Michael Navidson will know: Garchomp. Vortigern, sometimes called the black dragon, towers over the Sneasel. Deathless things back away. Even with their brains half destroyed and their souls in Eternatus’s grasp, the creatures they once were feel the fear due an apex predator.[break][break]
They give him the same treatment Voyager and Caelia would have endured on the frontlines: poisoned claws, dollops of ice, dark attacks. He endures it all without so much as a change in expression. Vortigern simply waits for Navy to have consent from the other man to board his dragon and fly up.


[break][break]

+ Gunner Graves

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Vortigern’s dark eyes sweep across the Sneasel. They mean to outnumber him. Navy swears he can hear the apex predator snort.[break][break]
Flipping around, he slams his tail into the ground. The earth beneath him splits…[break][break]
…is what Navy wishes he could say happened. It would churn his stomach far less than the reality of what follows. A fissure does form, but it is a fissure of flesh and blood. The ground shakes. The ground bleeds. The walls around them shake, trembling with pain.[break][break]
The Sneasel fall into the gaping wound made by the earthquake. One by one they’re crushed as the wounds regenerate with them still inside. Navy prays they’re dead, or whatever passes for dead down here. There will be no burial for these dead things, whether on land or sea.[break][break]
“We should fly outta here, and quick. Get too high up and…” Above them, white lights start to descend. They’ve angered the angels.[break][break]
“Well, I don’t wanna pick this fight today.” With a wave, Vortigern’s running after them.


[break][break]

+ Gunner Graves

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Every now and then, miracles happen. A bus arrives on time, a product delivers on its promise, law enforcement does their job. Navy takes the girl from Gunner and gives a solemn nod. Sometimes, people need to know the people who protect them care.[break][break]
She’s asleep by the time he reaches the door. The soft rise and fall of her chest serves as proof that she still lives. Parents who moments before worried that they must soon plan a funeral cry out in relief. She’s rushed to a hospital, checked over, found to be in perfect health.[break][break]
In time, Navy prays, this will all just fade into a bad dream. She’ll grow up into a normal person. It’ll just be some fun trivia she shares as an icebreaker on first dates.[break][break]
It had to be them. Arceus knows how wrong anyone else would have gotten it. A street rat in Slateport learns one thing, and learns it in very well: there is no justice in this world, save the justice you make for yourself. That, in the end, is the lynchpin tethering him to the side of the angels.[break][break]
“Be sure to mention this to Livy or whoever this report’s gonna go to.” Navy says to Gunner when the action dies down and they prepare to part ways. “There’s plenty more where this came from. Never a dull day in Dewford.”



[break][break]

+ Gunner Graves

[attr="class","pokeclass"]