and so she carries on tirelessly. several cups of espresso have become her breakfast and lunch with a power bar interspersed here and there. it's not sustainable, to say the very least, and king would have words for her if he - 

not now. 

melusine's fangs drip with acrid spittle in anticipation of the hunt. she's not as smooth a ride as lyune, but freya lines up a shot nonetheless and exhales as she lets a paralytic arrow fly. 

bryan delarosa

last paralyze arrow used in the raid

☉

they have the advantage in the air. the rocket's far enough out of her radius that the dragonair and dragalge skulking around the shoreline won't be able to give him trouble in the water. no matter. 

she can handle this with melusine. 

"no," she calls back down as smoke plumes, "but it's enough to slow you down."

she yanks hard on the reins and melusine snarls. feathers snap at the air, whipping up a harrowing hurricane to blast the rocket's cover away. 

that mask. he's a beast. 

he's the wolf.

slashes of air unmask. she readies another arrow and with a sharp cry, melusine's frenzied hurricane halts. the wind stills and she lets another arrow fly. 

bryan delarosa

roaring moon uses hurricane
i shoot bryan delarosa in the face little punkass bitch

☉

into the water he goes, his sharpedo abandoned in favor of lashing out at the feathered dragon. melusine, a maelstrom of the sea inside her, takes the sharpedo's attack with claws outstretched. electricity sizzles along her jowls as water races painfully over her red belly and blue-silver scales. 

freya wraps her wrists in the reins to hold on against the torrent of water. water shurikens batter her left wing. she flaps clumsily and one of them hits freya in the chest, knocking the air out of her lungs. 

melusina rights herself, drawing up and away from the water. through freya's hacking coughs, she utters a command in draconic and a booming roar thunders from melusine's chest. 

and below the rocket beast, twin dragonair surface from the depths.

bryan delarosa

die

☉

melusine's feathered wings draw tightly against her body as gravity drags her down. freya slumps against her neck, jostled and jarred as she's shoved unceremoniously into the water. salt stings her nose. pale gold eyes see murky shapes in the water. 

freya is a master of the skies, not the sea, though her dragons make up for her shortcomings. melusine's bright yellow eyes peer through the water, second lids granting her sight, and a hydro cannon blasts towards the sharpedo. 

aeris passes in front of freya and the dragoness wraps one hand around her stomach, allowing her to draw her from the saddle. 

and not a moment too soon. a greninja slices at the spot where she'd just been, criss-crossing a dark pattern into her roaring moon's back. bubbles slip past her lips. her other dragonair rushes to the roaring moon's aid, attempting a slam against the greninja with an aqua tail of its own.

bryan delarosa

drown

☉

sypha is ripped away from melusine's back, pelted with water strengthened tenfold by the rocket's mega greninja. freya's breath is stolen from her, replaced with salt water in her lungs, as she thrashes around in the wake. she comes onto the surface coughing and sputtering. 

sypha's limp form washes up to shore and she coughs in relief when the pokeball draws her back in, safe and sound. 

blinking bleary-eyed through stinging salt, water rushes out and around her armor. melusine shakes herself and gets to her feet. 

one still-dripping pokeball cracks open at her side as she plucks her bow from the tide and saunters over to where the rocket is also gathering himself. 

"deal with the greninja," she growls to the poipole, who chitters happily. freya swings the bow out and it snaps in twain, gears groaning and spurting water as two halves of one blade click into place. 

somewhere behind them, a mask bobs in the water. 

"get up, beast."

bryan delarosa

sypha is knocked out

☉

the wolf is not her target today and she's not going to throw her life away trying to stop him from getting away. but he doesn't need to know that. so she rakes in what information she can, analyzing the angles of his face, the slope of his nose, the cut of his hair. the sea water and blood won't make later identification easy, but she'll manage. 

in due time, bryan delarosa's identity will be known to the league. 

"we don't kill wantonly," she spits back. unlike rocket, they've no license to kill.

melusine barrels out from the surf, towards her to intercept the hailstorm. it quickly forms a blockade between them and freya grits her teeth in frustration. micolash chitters elatedly as he dodges the greninja's attack with a dizzying loop. 

melusine fans her wings and freya shields her eyes as the roaring moon whips up a hurricane, intent on throwing the snowstorm back in the beast's face.

bryan delarosa

poipole dodge lulz
roaring moon hurricane

☉

first, it was fern delaney and tapu koko. that was a headache in itself. jayden cross had only made it worse - a confusing, emotional jumble from blended lifetimes and far-fetched, watercolor memories. Zev Harcourt had slaughtered one of her dragonite. BARNABY FINCH had beat her hard enough in the head that she now sported an egg-sized bruise, thank you very much.

arceus, she is so tired. 

in the end, it will pale in comparison to the brutality she will face in several short hours. parts of it will be forgotten, stripped from flayed skin and the drifting of the soul too close to the border. she will be snapped back and saved, at the crest of her realization that she does not want her own end.

but for now, there is only irritation, frustration, and exhaustion. 

"you're right," she says - "the good ones don't kill wantonly."

melusine takes another blast of water to her sides. pointed shurikens scrape roughly against scale and she hisses back, preparing to charge, but then straightens in shock, reptilian head cocking towards the treeline. 

a shiver runs through the dragon and her shoulders flatten. goosebumps prickle along freya's skin. it must be a fae. a powerful one, at that, to make melusine react like that. 

true to thought, something rips up the flora along the beach. sand lifts upward in a crystalline battlefield that would have been beautiful if freya didn't absolutely despise sand. 

she waves a hand at melusine to prepare a deluge of water to give them a path, or at least shoot the beast from the air. they're never given the chance. he's plucked from the air like a fish out of water and is hauled away from them, triumph turning over into confusion and shock. 

the ninetails needn't waste her energy with a blizzard. freya collapses in the sand just as the floating particles fall. they patter on her cheeks, in her hair, and she makes a face.

"just...give me a minute, mel."

bryan delarosa

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