[attr="class","snub-greyson"]
"I'm tired." He admits freely, not looking at the massive canine. He would've been burning from shame, typically, if his mind could wrap around the concept.

His body was lined with the scars of battles won and lost; of near-death experiences; of betrayal and miscalculation. But it was his soul that flagged first.

It bore invisible wounds, shredded and worn, eroded from years of near-constant fighting and emotional wear.

"I don't want to fight anymore."

Arceus, when had he become so weak?

A flash of thunder illuminates the world for the briefest moments. In sees in that infinitesimal moment his ghostly visage, this time, standing next to Zamazenta.

It was telling him that even if he chose the path of power, he would always be there. Waiting. Biding his time. Corrupting.

Zamazenta's breathe comes out as a mist over Greyson's hand. In the dogs presence his awareness slowly begins to return, warmth spreading to fill cold and fading limbs. Greyson's blood crackles to life as static fills his veins. Where it touches life gains a foothold, pain rolling over him like a tide as veins scream. It lasts for short, fleeting moments, not strong enough to kick the man's body into gear. Not without his permission; t was a temporary reprieve, a hint at the sanctuary its power offered; of a new beginning.

"Why me?" He chokes out, that trickling awareness being the only thing to take hold. Did the dog want him to be fully lucid before he died? To see himself in this pitiful state?

"I'm not someone that can defend this region. I can only—"

Only what?

His memory flashes back to Lulu Flint, hands wrapped around her throat. It would've been so easy to..

To MATIAS SILPH, when he'd been prepared to ambush and kill the man outside of his home.

To Felix Gallagher and the overwhelming anger that had consumed him, to his desire not only to kill the man, but to see him suffer.

To jayden cross, their clash of blades and ideals, and the resignation that had come all too easily--that he would need to die.

To Velmos and how simple it was to snuff out that life; how he might've doomed Hoenn to an even worse fate by doing so.

Greyson doesn't finish his sentence.

The words fade, his gaze settling onto the night sky above, brow furrowing as he fights to keep the tears from coming.

He fails.



"If I accept... it won't end. It would never end."

He'd be resigning himself to an endless battle. Against Team Rocket. The DRK TRIAD. Maybe even Arceus itself.

Until his dying breath he would fight.

But.. Isn't that he'd signed up for? Isn't that what he had wanted, in the beginning?

"You'll change me." He says to the stoic canine. "I won't be me. I'll be.. I'll be someone else."

Delirium still sat the edge, poking and prodding, testing that newfound gaining awareness.

It feeds the fear.

"I don't want to change."

But that wasnt true, was it?

Battle had taken its pound of flesh. It had warped him; consumed him in a hatred that was tearing him apart each time he let it in.

He recalls, all too easily, his conversations with Caleb Harcourt, CIAN MAHER, ollie morales, Yuina Higashi, and even Elise Calcifet. How his hatred influenced him. His lack of control.

He saw how it'd affected annalise henderson, but was ignorant to his own metamorphosis. No, not ignorant. He'd seen the changes but just didn't want to confront the cold reality that he was slowly becoming the thing he hated.

If he'd accepted Zamazenta, maybe it would change him into someone he wasn't ashamed to look at in the mirror.

Or, maybe, he'd turn into MATIAS SILPH; someone whose quest for power turned him against what he'd set out to protect.

What did any of that matter? Already he could feel his body going into SHOCK. It wouldn't be long now.

He pictured his Mother, as she likely was now, curled up on the couch, watching one of her terrible dramas. She'd be sad for a while, but she would move on. He wanted to hug her one more time and tell her he was sorry. How hard this all had been. How he hadn't meant to let her down.

"Sorry Mom."

He would rest now. She would understand.

He turns, for the first time, to look at Zamazenta. It was a gorgeous creature that exemplified strength; an indomitable presence; a bulwark.

A small thread extends from the Legendary. It's thin, barely a strand, glowing with a slowly fading white light.

A product of his concussion, no doubt. Another delusion.

He smiles at the canine.

"I can't." He'd never have expected to turn this power down. "Maybe someone like lam logan wou-"

Wait, Lam.

Pain lances through his head. That's right. He was here with Lam.

Another pulse. His skull felt as if it was breaking beneath the pressure; the flood of information he'd been suppressing whiting out his vision for a moment.

Then, with dawning horror, he remembers everything.

Team Rocket was here.

Greyson's head whips to the building, to the storm of sand that rages inside. He was alone in there. Desperately, pain forgotten, Greyson turns to the Legendary.

"Help him!"

Zamazenta stood, motionless, gaze fixed on the Elite Four.

"Help him dammit! Isn't that what you're supposed to do?"

But that was supposed to be what he was meant to do. He'd been the one to bring Lam here. He'd placed him in danger. His hubris.

He could throw his own life away, but lam logan?

A small, weak chuckle escapes. It's barely a whisper in the torrential downpour.

Whether or not it was for his own good, the dog was manipulating him. Giving him a choice that they both knew wasn't one at all.

"Yeah, you'll fit right in."



A product of his delusion or not, Greyson extends his one good hand to the string between them, wrapping it around his palm like one might a kite line, knuckles white and arm shaking from the effort.

The string thrums with new energy, burning brighter as it thickens.

The knot in his chest tightens and his heartbeat is thunder in his ears. He would be resigning himself to a fate that was no longer his own.

But, hadn't he done that the moment he started down this path?

"Alright." He gives voice to the conviction. "Let's make this quick."

He swallows down the bile, the blood, and the words left unsaid. He dispels the fears that linger just beneath the surface. They would only serve to strengthen his dark passenger in the future, but right now, that didnt matter.

"If we're going to do this.. We're going to leave nothing on the table. All the way to the end, then."

He yanks hard on the string, opening himself to the power it offered. Zamazenta howls into the night, but to Greyson, it's a dim vibration. His awareness was already beginning to fade as the screams leave his lips.

But he holds on.

Even as his bones break and rearrange themselves; as his veins surge to pain startling life beneath newfound power.

He holds on because he has to.

After all, the fight wasn't over.

It was just beginning.

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[attr="class","snub-greyson"]The window Greyson was tossed out of, and its accompanied wall, erupt in an explosion. It doesn't shatter so much as it disintegrates.

Two shadows enter, moving quickly beneath the shroud of a dying SANDSTORM.

Zamazenta enters the fray with destructive, reckless abandon of a WILD CHARGE. The Legendary's maw curls to reveal pristine white fangs the size of forearms and it descends upon the BANETTE.

Greyson flares his WILLPOWER and his speed explodes. In a moment he's standing in-front, and above of lam logan, the SHADOW BALL colliding against his rain-soaked shirt. It bores a hole straight through the fabric but breaks across his nearly impenetrable skin.

"Sorry," he says, and at first it's not clear who he's talking to, but the way his lip shifts into a smirk would soon leave no doubt. "I think I found a better offer than what you gave me."

Lashing out, Greyson aims a punch to the underboss's midsection, the weight of untapped power behind it.

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[attr="class","snub-greyson"]That strike carried a measure of his new WILLPOWER behind it, but not enough to kill him, it seemed. He had mixed feelings about that but didn't have time to explore them.

He doesn't spare lam logan a glance, instead focusing entirely on the Underboss in-front of him.

Even a moment of distraction would be enough for this façade to crumble. Their lives depended on his ability to play the part.

"And what makes either of you think I'll let you walk out of here?" He says to THEO BECKETT, his eyes narrowing and fist clenching.

He was putting on a show, of course, parading around like he was. The power had not yet fully settled and while the repair to his body had been all but miraculous, he could barely stand, much less get into a fist fight with the man in-front of him.

But to admit that was to admit defeat; to admit that he was infallible.

And something in the back of his mind refused to back down.

"I'll bury you both in the rubble of this building."

Since the moment he'd broken through the window something was calling to him. The hairs of his forearms rose, as if he'd been covered in static electricity. Curiously, it was coming from a nearby pillar.

He sends an empowered backhand through it, concrete falling away in chunks to reveal forearm length metal rebar. That feeling of static hightened.

Wrapping his hand around the old metal he watches in equal parts horror, and fascination, as it flowed into his skin, reinforcing it and giving it a metallic sheen.

"Oh. Oh." Maybe he had some juice left.

An idea dawning, he reaches for more.