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[attr="class","textbox"]Smoke, casting an all-consuming and suffocating blanket across the land.[break][break]

Cinders, searing the eyes and throat of anyone who dared struggle against its spread.[break][break]

The feeling of being trapped, the light snuffed out and the walls closing in as timber falls around you like the thuds of a monster's footprints.[break][break]

A familiar feeling, an urgency, twisted knots in Isaac's guts.[break][break]

For once, Isaac hadn't run alone. As the winds took him, a second gust rushed to reinforce him. Suicune, spurred on by that same sickening feeling, now raced by his side. It was as unnerving of a presence as it was a comforting one. Suicune was a free spirit, one who rarely opted to remain shackled to their charge. For them to be so in sync was a baleful omen.[break][break]

So, too, was the sheer power emanating from the heart of the Giant's Chasm. To be an Avatar was to be more in tune with Infinity Energy than your average denizen of Hoenn, for it always pulsed through your veins. That meant being sensitive to deviations from the norm, and what an incredible deviation this was. Whatever had laid waste to this land was power overflowing.[break][break]

Yet it wasn't just a question of power. To be Isaac was to be more in tune with Zev than your average denizen of Hoenn.[break][break]

Isaac didn't want to believe it. Surely, this mindless devastation was more like bryan delarosa? No, no. Xerneas had been firm on where they stood. Perhaps one of the Ruinous ones? Couldn't be. Neither of the ones that stood against Hoenn dealt in flame. Maybe even Silph? From what Michael Navidson said about him, Isaac would've believed it, and yet Groudon did not tower over this blighted land.[break][break]

This was nothing like the Zev he knew. There was no fucked-up, sadistic artistry, painstakingly arranged by the deft hands of a professional. There was no greater goal, nothing lost for the League or gained for Rocket. There was only devastation, a raging inferno spotlighting a single point of pure darkness.[break][break]

In some ways, it was tragic. In some ways, it was a new opportunity. But for all Zev had changed, for all he'd degenerated, Isaac knew it would be a mistake to underestimate him. To act like he had the advantage would be presenting his throat to a man who would rip it out without a second thought.[break][break]

Zev would know he was here. There was no use hiding. As he approached the event horizon, the winds released his form.

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[attr="class","textbox"]There he was. The man who made a point of teaching Isaac to handle their work like a professional stood square in the middle of his own carnage. Of course he did. He had nothing to fear from the consequences. As they lapped at his heels, he simply supped from them like a king from his goblet.[break][break]

They were kings, once. To Isaac it had been his passion, twenty years of life given to enrich a world he was unworthy of leading yet entrusted to safeguard all the same. To Zev, it was a means to an end. Nowadays it was something lesser still. What need did he have of kingship now that he was a god?[break][break]

He was already in his new body, of course. Isaac wondered how long it had been since his real body had felt the sun. He'd thrown it away, just as easily as he'd thrown away every lesson he'd ever taught Isaac. In a strange sense, it offended Isaac. For all their differences, Zev's tutelage had done wonders for Isaac. Every time he tapped into those darker arts, he found himself bitterly thankful for the monster he owed everything to.[break][break]

All of that was worthless to Zev now. So, too, was Isaac, and he damn well knew it.[break][break]

"I am." There was no urgency in Zev's voice. There was no hatred, not even disdain. To Zev, Isaac was beneath even that. In one sense, it was calming. Unlike his inexorable pursuit in the Megalopolis, on the resurfaced isle, Isaac was in no danger. For once, he could breathe in Zev's presence.[break][break]

In another sense, it was terrifying. Zev, a man who decisively cut down any obstscle in his path, didn't even deem him a threat. It was as if they were on two different planes of existence. Yet Isaac knew he had to try, even if the end of this story had been written long before it began.[break][break]

"One I should've put out a long time ago."