they hadn't shared many words on the way down. even if tsubaki wanted to, freya's in her own head. her coffee had cooled on the bistro table, hands too busy gripping the railing of the balcony. jaw set, eyes unstaring through the wetness on her face, thinking about how far she's come and all she's had to lose because of it. 

how arduous the journey, to regain it. 

yet here she stands, as promised, with tsubaki at the very least looking like less of a wet and muddy rattata. there is a cloud over them, made worse by the haunted currents that drift around them.

lathliss' bulk didn't fit under here so she waits on the deck, keeping an eye out for danger. 

freya murmurs, "tell me more about what you remember. while it's still fresh in your mind. all the differences. all the similarities." 

growing beings shiver in their egg sacs at their nearness.

Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki

☉

that ever-present heartbeat rhythmically pulses under tsubaki's words. even the sound of her boots on the floor are swallowed by the living echoes all around them; ultra beasts undulate in their clutches and the walls shudder and outside the rest of the plane teems with activity. distant sonorous cries grace the outside of the hull.

she mistakes the squelching sound as just another instrument to the rest of the chorus. 

"seeker of light," she repeats. she doesn't know enough about ships to speak on what establishes a predecessor. gods, if only angelo vestri and skyler dross were still here. if this was the first, what brought them here? was it a failed expedition? or was this exactly where they intended to land?

she tugs on her sygna suit gauntlets and parts a curtain of algae. bunk beds are fastened to the ground, mattresses mottled black and green with mildew. some sprout colorful, glowing flora. another cluster of eggs glows softly in the top right corner of the room, swathed in a long white tendril eerily similar to tsubaki's manjushage. 

it twitches and freya eyes it warily, blinking twice, waiting for it to still. it does. this place plays tricks on the mind. she crouches, searching for imprints amidst the invasive overgrowth, any lingering remains of knowledge. any answers.

from this other room adjacent to tsubaki's quarters, she says, "the other one disappeared. so why does this one stay? the tera crystals - you think the ship was made with them? or did they come much later?"

warning bells ring softly at the base of her skull. conversations drift - we don't know what this energy does to our pokemon. we don't know the lasting effects of tera crystal use. 

for all they know, they could be erasing their pokemon by using this borrowed power. her jaw tightens, heel turning, another squelch and she thinks it her own footstep. she does not notice the tentacle drift away from its clutch, the gnarled, jagged teeth of a predator in the shadows leering down. 

waiting patiently. 

Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki

19 be hunted by the corpse of a large megalopolan with a nihilego controlling it by way of its toxin in the open realm or The Quaestor Lucis.

☉

its malformed face ruptures, revealing rows upon rows of jagged teeth, enamel stripped and replaced with coral. the corners of its smile split the skin by the canthus of its eyes - hateful, empty sockets housing an eerie blue glow.

shadows stretch across tsubaki's face and freya does not see the look of horror, but majushage readies an attack and freya reacts instinctually. beams of light race overhead and she tucks into a roll. the silver of her armor refracts the light from the nihilego's attack. 

coral bits plink down onto the floor. wet skin tears from its crown; threads of flesh sizzle away from the attack and leave limpid, hanging strands around its face. silver-blue bones poke through sallow gray fat. 

it does not seem to notice that half its face is exposed to the sea. 

an inhumane shriek rattles through a broken throat. freya gets back to her feet beside tsubaki. dozens of tentacles writhe above them now, spreading from the corpse's back. in the adjacent room, mewling cries greet the ghoulish call to arms. 

"get back to the deck," she says. "we're at a disadvantage in here." lathliss can take care of them. any of the roaring moons slung across her belt could dispatch the creature and its young, but she cannot risk damaging the interior of the ship. she reaches for the blade at her hip. 

Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki

26 experience a clutch of ultra beast eggs hatching and the horrific newborn forms of nihilego or poipole emerging. protective parent ultra beasts will mercilessly protect them.

☉

the most important thing fernando ever taught her sings sweetly to her now - even gods can bleed. that same ichor drips from this macabre puppet's ragged face, thick and viscous. bits of it fall away and its coral teeth, bleached by betrayal, loosen from rotted gums. the tentacles holding it fast to the ceiling fall as its lifeblood drips from the holes in its gelatinous body. 

the young cry hungrily for their mother. they tumble, mewling, rolling over each other to dig into the bloated body parts still left of the stolen corpse. bones drift into newly formed bells. acrid black sludge spills towards the retreating trespassers. 

freya's hand abandons the blade and hisses sourly, twisting her wrist to twine tsubaki's fingers with hers. she's careful not to cut her with the gauntlets made for war and shoulders her way past the center console, where screens lay dormant. metal stairs, mostly eaten away, are their closest means to escape, and lathliss waits on the other side.

the newly hatched leeches squeal in unison as freya reaches for the door. light blooms in front of her vision. mechanical whirs, hushed voices, the incessant flatline hum of electricity - she knows behind her are phantom images, holograms stuck in an endless loop of their final voyage. 

she twists the handle, but with the surge of energy comes recorded safety parameters. the lock clicks shut before she can open the door. 

lathliss bellows from above deck.

Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki

☉

there are other pokeballs at her hip. if she must, she will tear this ship apart to ensure their safety, but tsubaki's hand leaves hers and freya is left lurching for the girl swept into the embrace of her beast. 

"TSUBAKI!" a useless scream for the damned. she's absorbed into that swollen, devilish bell, and freya's sword is drawn in an instant. ichor spills. the holograms startle away in fear, avoiding the pooling black blood. 

she will cut the girl out of its monster if she has to. she will not leave her body to rot in the sea. 

a reverent hymn stops her in her tracks and every hair of hers stands on end. gruesome terror bleeds way to cold understanding and a new guilt crawls into her heart to settle alongside the others. she was supposed to take care of her. 

the holograms bare their teeth and they dance away in fright, but they know. they know what this amalgamation is. they know what it's taken and all it's yet to take. the children abandon their hunger, bathing in the light of this new mother, even as they are corroded by her poison. 

pearly tentacles spasm. two of the orphans fall, lifeless, sprawling in the blood of mothers and sisters. 

"tsubaki, they're not real!"

come back to me, she urges. she has seen this once before and she knows the girl is alive, but just as well - she knows she's doomed. cursed by an otherworldly demon, haunted by its song. 

you are not a monster.

"please, help me break through the door!"

Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki

☉

her step-father's hands are on the viola and the sound is resplendent. sonorous. heavenly. his drawn bow, quivering with grace, reaching into the earth, feeling the shifting of hundreds of ancient bodies and turning their rumbling language to song. 

they make a mockery of it, these heralds of a cultist's choir. this is the song of the deep dark, the place where the light cannot reach. and it has infested tsubaki's cadence, slithered between vowel and consonant. 

she dodges to the side as the amalgamation carves through alien steel, tearing hinges, crushing valves. steam bursts from a hydraulics pipe and sprays the side of one of the children, sending it spinning like a top. 

that does not stop its chanting.

"you more than anyone know i'm not perfect," she says - a lot more calmly than she feels. her grip tightens on the hilt of her sword. she does not spare a glance at the hole in the wall. 

but she senses lathliss' approach, feels the temperature change before the dragon forces her head through with snapping jaws. freya whirls, says, "no, lath, stop!" - she  tries to clamp one of tsubaki's tendrils between her teeth. 

Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki

☉