Locke arrived a little late, but he doubted his tardiness would be noticed among the bigger names present.

Leva-Leva had taken her time fixing his blazer as best she could from the damage it’d received at the last fancy party he’d attended, though the threadbare coat was hardly suited for the weather. The Levanny had counteracted this problem by making two matching eggnog-white scarves as well, which were dutifully wrapped around himself and the purple-pink Delibird chick in his arms.

Regret immediately filled Locke as they entered the sprawling estate, however, as they realized the majority of the people already here they only knew from HNN articles and the odd tabloid cover. The same Magikarp out of water feeling they’d experienced at the soiree crept up on them, and even the hot cocoa they’d accepted at the entrance did little to soothe their nerves as they scanned the room for any familiar face they could find.

They eventually spotted luka chêne and Martín del Mar admiring a nearly-decorated tree-how do you fit a tree that large indoors-off to the side near an assortment of colorful stockings. They didn’t recognize the himbo god accompanying them, but they very much wanted to.

“Don’t tell me his highness is making his guests do his decorating for him,” Locke joked as they approached the small party-within-a-party, though they still bent down to let Kringle-Kringle pick out an ornament from the box. The baby Pokémon gave the felt snowflake an experimental chew, making little grabby hands as his trainer gently pulled it away and hung it in a blank spot on the tree.

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

Well, it definitely wasn’t a normal Pokémon. It had a certain…vibe? He guessed? It didn’t feel like the average Pokémon when it looked at him, was what he was trying to conceptualize.

…It was weirdly similar to that bull thing that tried to gore him at Mt. Pyre.

“Oh. Hello.” Locke squeaked with a small dip of their head. Were they supposed to bow? It looked like the sort of thing that’d want you to bow. They glanced back at Matias, unsure how to approach.

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

”Eh?!” Even though they’d asked the question, Locke really couldn’t ever have fully prepared for the answer. A prince. Like a royal prince. They could barely wrap their head around it.

“N-No, but still! How’d ya even manage to meet a prince anyhow?” He asked while tucking his hair out of the way for the headphones.

By now, he was too busy processing the idea that this meant he’d met an actual real prince to notice Pip-Pip slip out of his lap and into the cargo bay.

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

Eris Halla was unnaturally strong for someone nearly half Locke’s age. ”Th-Thanks!”

They scooped up Doki-Doki’s egg and Sympathy in Action, paging through it quickly to find the remainder of the ritual, only to stop on seeing not one, but two threads of Destiny hanging from their chest. One lead to the Beast, as intended.

The other connected to a man shrouded in a dark and familiar miasma.

Recognition and fear crossed Locke’s face before he could even think to mask it. The rest of the passage forgotten as, somehow, he was once again face-to-face with Cillian Quinn.

For a moment, he was paralyzed, trapped between two monsters and unable to tear his gaze away from the other man. But, as always, the Beast punishes hesitance. The sands rose again, this time the Palossand revealing itself in full to swallow him and Eris whole.

His younger companion was quicker to act again, burning the giant Pokémon away until only a rain of golden sand remained, and the wind picked up around Locke to cast the red shovel away, for good measure. He cast another nervous glance back in Merlino’s direction, but Eris pulled his attention back to her before he could linger again.

“Right! The book! We need to…to…”

Upstream, crimson figures tear themselves apart on sharp rocks,
wearing themselves down to nothing.

Locke stared at Eris, unable to finish. Had that vision been of the past, or the future? He wasn’t so sure now. But he couldn’t ask something like that of her. He couldn’t ask it of anyone in the room, not even Merlino.

But there were six Demons. Six sacrifices.

…There had to be another way.

They tore open the book, flipping through to reach the most recent page it had shown and reading aloud: ”Inside the Beast dwells six Demons, which must be bound and broken if the creature is to be destroyed.”

Yep. There were definitely demons and they were definitely bound. Skipping through the list of Demons, they continued:

”A sympathetic link from the Six to the Demons.”

Ok. They were all feeling pretty well linked. Done.

”Burnt into stone, and sealed within the Rubedo forms a living mommet…What’s a mommet? Er-and a Rubedo?”

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

A wild Abra disappeared from under Liza-Liza just before she landed, Teleporting away to what would hopefully be a less-crowded napping spot. Locke slid down from his Charizard’s back to drop next to del Mar, his Chingling jingling from his belt loop as she tried to get a better look at the pair.

“Oh, we finished our last delivery a little while ago, so I wanted fly around the mountain a bit!” They explained. ”But what about you? First farming, now hiking? You’ll lose your city boy reputation at this rate!”

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

“S-Sorry! Here, I can um…” Locke stepped a safe distance from the snowboys before summoning Chiro-Chiro in between everyone, the Talonflame’s Flame Body akin to warming up next to a fireplace.

Hot cocoa sounded really good right about now, but somewhere between the adrenaline and the cold a dull ache had snuck in between his eyes. Fighting against all the emotions of actually being inside of a friend’s house for the first time in literally years could only make it worse.

But this was the second time MATIAS SILPH had made an offer like this, and it seemed rude to deny him again…

”Well…Alright, sure.”

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

When he woke up again, at least this time a little closer to morning, it was because of the distinct sound of chewing far too close to his head for comfort.

Locke bolted upright, wondering in his sleep-addled state of mind if one would feel themselves being eaten alive while unconscious. It took until he’d finished counting all of his fingers and started on his toes for the rest of his braincells to wake up properly and realize that this was stupid.

And also that the chewing was coming from Liza-Liza.

”Wha-Hey! What do you have!” What the Charizard had was what looked like a black bone of some kind, like the sort you’d see on a cartoon drumstick except alive and desperately trying to wiggle its way out of the dragon’s maw.

She tried unsuccessfully to cover the evidence with a clawed hand.

“No! Drop it!” Locke gripped the poor creature with both hands and pulled. Liza-Liza pulled back, and for a tense moment trainer and Pokémon were trapped in a tug-of-war for this creature’s life. Then, with a wet pop and a disgusting amount of drool, out came the Unown, soaked and unconscious, but mercifully alive.

They spent a few more moments of their morning wrestling to keep Liza-Liza away long enough to fish a Pokéball out of their bag for the poor creature, while also trying not to let it drip on them. In the end, they only managed to succeed in two of those things, still wiping sticky saliva off of their pants as they finally packed up camp.

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

Locke suppressed a shiver as he pulled the neck of his new sweater up. Others would call the Delibird-and-giftbox pattern gaudy, but nothing trapped heat better than a grandmother’s loving stitchwork.

Flying on the back of a large, fire-breathing dragon also helped keep the cold at bay.

A curious rumbling noise pulled their attention to the mount in question. ”Hm? What’s up?” Or down. They peered over Liza-Liza’s wings at the ground below, where an unusual but familiar blur of white fur was pacing itself beside-

“Mister del Mar!” Locke called out as they guided their Charizard down to meet the pair. ”Fancy seeing you up here!”

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

The threat apparently averted; Liza-Liza dropped her head to the ground to curl around her trainer with a huff. Locke snuggled into his Charizard’s side and watched the flickering lights of a squad of Malamar dance beneath the bay between heavy eyelids. Blurred together with drowsiness, he couldn’t pick apart the flashing spots from the stars’ watery reflection, all melding together in a mix of sparkling colors and inky black.

It wasn’t long before they were drifting away again, body heavy with the familiar vertigo that came of teetering just on the edge of sleep.

---

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz

A giddy sensation spread throughout Locke’s chest and face as the door opened, until they were greeting Conrad with a matching grin of their own. ”And I brought breakfast!”

The minor display of the lab’s lighting had the intended effect, childlike wonder painting Locke’s face as he stepped into the room, admiring the spotless office and flashy, almost alien equipment that inhabited it. And then a teasing thought occurred to him.

“…Were you waiting in the dark this whole time so you could show that off?”

[attr="class","wizzcred"]❤ wizz