It is early on, when Makoto arrives in Sootopolis - hidden in a secluded alleyway, as Erebus finally parts from them. The process is no less discomforting than when it had taken their body in the first place - and Makoto is sent darting for the nearest trashcan as bile rises in their throat. Their stomach is emptied, throat burning, coughing...

... "F-fuck..." They breathe, when they can finally find their tongue to speak. They lean over the trashcan for a few more moments to catch their breath, any particular odors overwritten by acridity.

Erebus watches on - and as it peers over the surface of Makoto's mind, notes the turmoil that is there. It reaches out to them - a hand against their shoulder --

-- But Makoto is suddenly flinching away, whirling around to look to Erebus with wide and alarmed eyes, on guard. They want to run. They don't want to be here. The sensations - the feelings - that they had been subject to are still fresh on their mind. Their body once more doesn't feel like their own. Yet, they feel rooted in place as they speak "D-don't touch me!"

Erebus freezes, its gaze scanning over Makoto's body language, as it once more reads over those surface thoughts and feelings... ... You're scared of me. It acknowledges, though it does not understand why. They would have been safe - it ensured that much. So why do they fear, so much more brilliantly than its prior host did?

Makoto swallows. Even this - its 'voice' brushing across their mind - almost feels wrong. Almost feels too much. But something stands out to them, in the moment. But you're not... They observe in turn - because why else would all of this have gone on? Why would it have used them so thoroughly otherwise?

You are safe. It had decided; they something it can fall back upon, without worry...

... But Makoto is not sure if they can say the same of Erebus - and though they say nothing of it, the both of them fast recognize it.

There is no time to address it in the moment, however - not when the chaos that's been breaking out around them suddenly becomes all the more apparent. There is a sense of guilt in recalling Erebus now - but they have to make sure that Tsukiko will be battle-ready; sending her out, so that she can use Wish to recover from the prior fighting.

TLDR: Makoto is in an alley at the northern edge of F2, has a brief crisis with Deoxys, before switching it out for Ninetales so she can Wish herself back into fighting-ready shape after the prelude fight. Both Makoto and Ninetales are disguised.
V5LSDg36

KO'd -

Her smirk is wiped from her face by Navy 's swift backhand.

Hana stumbles back, a bullet's ricochet (courtesy Lydia Magnusson ) lost with the sound of a glove bare skin. The sword shoots from the sheriff's body forcefully, followed by a jettison of blood.

Sasaki-- why...!?

She glares down suddenly at her sword's hilt, but one look is all its takes to confirm that her blade is just as confused as her. Eyes dart up, toward the wolf at the man's side. Was this the work of that unknown pokemon!?

A curse is spit from her lips alongside blood.

Mind racing, she barely has time to regain her senses, her skull ringing, when the sound of two gunshots ring out. By the time her eyes catch the man in the cowboy getup (Montgomery James ), a flurry of steel meets the bullet and cuts it in two. She feels one of the pieces of shrapnel graze her cheek, a droplet of blood rolling down it as she frantically searches for the source of the other shot.

Unfortunately, she comes up short.

Walked right into the belly of the whale, didn't ya?

She silently chides herself for thinking this would be a simple one-on-one, fateful duel. Nothing ever ends up like the movies.

No. The leviathan's right there. You haven't been swallowed yet.

Kyogre begins to glow with an ethereal energy. A battle alongside the embodiment of the sea. Uncaring, volatile. A fitting end, if ever there was one.

Hana's secondary sword melds into shadow, and she takes the remaining one with both hands.

As Navy looks up at Shred , deflecting molten orichalcum and the sweltering heat of a solar beam, Hana steps forward and plants her foot on Navy's back, shoving him with all her strength to try and shove him off balance before he can leverage that same blade against her. She'd hack dangerously at him if he'd try.

As she did that, Montgomery James would feel a chill, and a dread pang of fear in his throat. Not a moment later, a blade would emerge from the shadows cast by a royal sun, and lash out to slit his neck in one swift motion.

The future was seen, and it was bleak. One look into her Dusclops' solemn eye told Mitsuru all she needed to know about what would come next. Sinking. Struggling. Drowning.

The vague words weighed heavy on her mind, though she wasn't quite sure what they meant. Sinking? What was sinking? Was she sinking? Was the Cave of Origin sinking? Or... Was... Was... Was, was Sootopolis sinking? No. Surely, not. Surely, she was being silly. Surely, there was no way that an entire city could sink into the sea like a stone. There was no way. There was simply no way. That was impossible!

But despite her best efforts to deny it, she simply couldn't. Deep down, she knew the truth: Kyogre was many things, but before anything else, it was divine. And when it came to the Gods, nothing was truly impossible.

No, more than that. Watching Kyogre as it loomed over the Cave of Origin, Mitsuru got the sense that doing so would be utterly trivial for one such as he.

"Uuuuuuuuu... This sucks... This sucks! What are we supposed to do, Ichi? What do I do?"

The Dusclops could offer no answer. Another Pokemon, however, had a more apt suggestion.

"EEP!" Mitsuru flinched, twisting to face the presence behind her. For a second, she was terrified that it was another Paradox Pokemon, a Gouging Fire come to finish her off. Instead, however, what she saw was an Entei. The real one. The true one. The one she'd seen before. Fear melted away, and was quickly replaced with awe. Here it was, one of the sacred beasts of her homeland, standing right in front of her... But no matter how badly she wanted to live in that moment just a while longer, she couldn't. Not in this place, not at this time. "Entei... Right. Right, I need to leave, I need to go, I need, I need to, I..."

She couldn't. She just couldn't. Everyone was fighting for their lives. There was so much at stake. She'd been a coward for so long, but now, she had to be brave.

"I'm sorry! I can't! Not yet!"

Kyogre was looking for something in the Cave of Origin, and looking up at the blue stalactite as it slowly began to come loose, she felt a thread being tugged at the back of her brain. Battered and exhausted and emotionally drained, she couldn't tell what that thread connected to, but that fact that it was there at all was enough to make an assumption. Maybe, just maybe... No. She couldn't doubt herself on this. Kyogre definitely wanted this thing, and if she it to him, then it would definitely stop it.

"Ichi! Bring that thing down!"

It might not've been a smart choice. In fact, it might've been the worst choice she could've possibly made. For his part, the Dusclops did not judge. Instead, he simply channelled his supernatural powers to increase the Gravity upon the stalactite.

Whether or not it was the right thing to do... Well, that would become apparent soon enough.

---

@entei i mean @entei i mean @entei i mean @entei i mean--
kyle lopez
TL;DR - Mitsuru panics, has a bad time, sees Entei, has a better time, then instead of being sensible and running away, she tries to look cool in front of her childhood crush and has her Dusclops use Gravity on the Blue Stalactite to try and pull it free.
75tKyBBp