[attr="class","icon"]

In an instant, Keldeo was transformed. It was awe-inspiring, watching the colt shift into the form of a valiant musketeer, even if they had turned their blade against them. [break][break]

Before Eddie could react, he was shoved bodily away by Terrakion, and the soldier groused, [break][break]

“I ain't here ta disrupt shit, buddy.” [break][break]

He glanced from the bulky bull to the phantasmal Kyle. That stick in his hands might as well have been a rapier, considering that little trick he pulled with the water. That didn't dissuade Eddie, though; he balled his fists at his sides and addressed Terrakion directly, [break][break]

“Look, I'm happy ta follow yer lead, but I ain't lettin' ya go it alone. I've got yer back, whether you like it or not.” [break][break]

When his foot nudged something at his feet, the soldier glanced down, and suddenly grasped a charred tree limb of his own. He brandished the branch at Kyle, as though the lengthy bit of charcoal were a zweihander of his own, [break][break]

“And I'm gonna hold you to that; about the makin' it back in one piece. But I ain't gonna let ya try nothin' funny, either.” [break][break]

If Terrakion aimed to protect, then Eddie was happy to do the same. He was no swordsman, no chivalric swashbuckler ripped from the pages of a Kalosian novel, but damn it, Eddie wasn't going to go down without a fight, and he wasn't going to let Terrakion face this trial alone, either.

[attr="class","bottom"]
kyle lopez [break]

[attr="class","icon"]

No – no, this wasn't right. Terrakion didn't seem to have much trouble keeping up with Keldeo at first, but Kyle's words really seemed to be getting to him. They weren't taunting so much as they were dissecting, Eddie thought. His grip on the branch grew tighter, [break][break]

“I think that ain't fair,” Eddie asserted, [break][break]

“Ta either of ya.” [break][break]

But Eddie would be a hypocrite if he said he hadn't been in Terrakion's shoes once. When Keldeo pressed the offensive, the soldier remembered a time during which he too had to navigate that push and pull, that all at once selfish and selfless desire to defend. [break][break]

Was he now where Beau Fontaine was back on the Megalopolan prison ship, stuck with Eddie and his fearful vigilance? Was he now where Roze Falkner was when he faced down Regice for a second time, still fighting tooth and goddamn nail despite the soldier's protestations that she run for cover? [break][break]

Yeah, actually, he was, Eddie realized suddenly. Which meant that the soldier knew exactly what he had to do. He began to close in on the clashing Swords with a newfound purpose, [break][break]

“But ya know what they say – ” [break][break]

Keldeo may have known his teacher well enough to keep the guy on his toes, but Eddie liked to think he could throw a wrench into this whole operation. One more step, then another to the side, and then the soldier lunged forward, jabbing the thick branch towards the colt's flank as though he were a thrusting the point of the sword at an armored foe, [break][break]

“Two swords are better'n one!”

[attr="class","bottom"]
kyle lopez [break]

[attr="class","icon"]

A swing and a miss. Terrakion became a blur of gray, like he had on the last battlefield they shared, and Eddie grimaced when he heard the sound of the literal blades of grass crack against the bull's flank, [break][break]

“Hey, it takes one ta know one!” [break][break]

Which is why Eddie imagined that maybe he could understand the bulky Sword in ways that Kyle could not. Both he and Terrakion were no strangers to that headstrong pride, that bellicose stubbornness that wouldn't give in to anything. That's why Eddie had to keep pushing, to keep up the fight alongside the bull regardless of his repeated attempts at foiling his intervention. He held his branch aloft again, and began his charge back into the fight for what might have been the final time, [break][break]

“Terrakion!” Eddie bellowed, like a thundering war-cry. He wondered if this was how the ancient myrmidons must have felt as they descended upon the gates of Troy, warring side-by-side with their valiant brothers, [break][break]

“You ain't getting' rid'a me that easy! I already toldja that I'm with ya, you stubborn sunnovabitch! Whether you like it – ” [break][break]

He was so close now. If he could just get there a half-step quicker, if he could somehow outpace the lumbering bull – there. Eddie grinned suddenly when he spied his opening, when the clashing blades abating for just the briefest moment. The soldier lunged, brandishing his own feeble excuse for a sword, and used whatever opening he could find to place himself between the resolute Keldeo and the battling Terrakion. [break][break]

It was time for the big guy to get a taste of his own medicine, even if Eddie ran the very real risk of getting cleaved in half in the process,[break][break]

“Or not!”

[attr="class","bottom"]
kyle lopez [break]

[attr="class","icon"]

A brotherhood was forged by blazing hearts and the fever pitch of combat, a common backdrop for camaraderie since Eddie had first stepped foot onto Hoenn's soil. The blazing heart of the charcoal in the soldier's rough hands all at once burst and ruptured and shined like the radiant sun; Eddie hadn't even realized it at first, until Keldeo was sent tumbling back. [break][break]

Eddie was left to stare, dumbstruck, at both the fallen colt and the glorious sword of light in his hands. He hardly even realized that Kyle's spirit had said anything at all until the blade shimmered and faded, twinkling away into an indistinct mirage that bore all the colors of the setting sun. The soldier flexed his calloused fingers experimentally, [break][break]

“Huh, no kiddin'.” [break][break]

Next to him, the Resolute bull dipped his head in kind, a humble acknowledgment of his former partner's words. It was never easy to admit when you were wrong, but this admission paved the way for something so much greater. A partnership of two bull-headed bastards, two reckless hearts to rush headlong into the future together, fighting side by side as brothers. [break][break]

Before the soldier could say anything more, quip some line about the golden route he and Terrakion would one day forge, the mists began to swallow them entirely, consuming the light that had banished that mirage of ancient history. Maybe that was just as well, though; there was no sense in chasing ghosts, Eddie thought, when he realized that Kyle and his other companion had left from whence they came. [break][break]

That just left the weary Keldeo, who Eddie reached in a few long strides. With a heft and a groan, the colt was laid across the bulky Terrakion's shoulders, and both the new avatar and his patron turned to the sound of approaching footsteps. [break][break]

The indistinct haze all around them abated, then, and Eddie smiled wide, waving a soot-stained hand, [break][break]

“Mission accomplished!” he called boisterously. The soldier laughed, loud and with good nature, [break][break]

“Where'd the heck did you get ofta? You missed all the action!”

[attr="class","bottom"]
kyle lopez + Yuina Higashi [break]