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Though many had been freed of their toxic burdens, the grotesque appendage that had sprouted from Luka’s heart remains. It pulses and twitches as she remains helplessly tethered to it, and the madness that accompanies such a burden. It’s as though her mind no longer belongs to her fully- there’s something else rattling around in her skull with her, too loud to drown out completely.[break][break]

She has enough of her wits about her to realize this is wrong, however. ”I-I’m sorry!” she manages to choke out to Genevieve Cromwell, even as the chain makes an attempt to strike again. It takes all her remaining effort to hold it back, though the herb she’d consumed still isn’t enough to free herself of the chain’s influence. If anything, it seems to be getting worse. Perhaps it’s because of all the damage to her sygna suit: now nothing more than a piece of thematically appropriate clothing, it’s working poorly to keep her safe.[break][break]

Even so, she does her best to fight back. It feels like her head is splitting in half- there’s a part of her, struggling to surface, that still resists. But the toxic chain that sprouts from her is still deeply rooted, and the hive-minded urge to join them megalopians back on their ship is overwhelming. It doesn’t help that most of her former comrades are now also racing towards the ship, though for her the line between friend and foe is still muddled and blurred.[break][break]

”I’m sorry!” she yells again, though it’s unclear who-if anyone- she’s talking to. Her chain practically drags her forwards, still in the misshapen form of a shield, though now it batters against some of her fellow, pushing them aside to clear her own path.[break][break]

But not all hope is lost for their group. And though she has little to do with it, her Pokemon still embody the true spirit of their trainer. Luka fumbles with her belt as she runs, managing to release her Sylveon. And Sugar, upon noticing the wave of enemies about to descend upon them, springs into action.[break][break]

Pink ribbons extend around her, her z-move unleashed in a powerful attempt to hold the line back. If some of their foes are prevented from attacking, even if only for a few moments, it should hopefully give Luka and the others a chance to escape…[break][break]

[break][break]

---

[break][break]
TLDR;[break]
- sygna suit deactivated[break]
- picking choice 1[break]
- sylveon uses z-move: resplendent ribbons to slow down attackers

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”W-wait, hang on! I’m going to…t-that is, I want to help!”[break][break]
They’re bold words from someone who’s kept herself on the sidelines of this conflict so far. But as Luka watches her comrades take up arms against the impending foe, it strikes her that she can’t just stand around and do nothing. To do as much is as good as conceding victory to Rocket.[break][break]
Her voice wavers amongst her fellows, all far more confident and able-bodied than she. But she stands with them nonetheless; at the very least, she can provide another warm body to fight amongst their cause. It helps as well to see Isaac Merlo there, the shield he bears offering not just protection, but a reminder of what they all stand for. They defending not only themselves in this moment, but everyone else who doesn’t deserve to fall under Rocket’s tyranny.[break][break]
”Come on, Parfait,” she mutters, unclipping a love ball from her belt, ”We can be helpful too!”[break][break]
A shower of bubbles announces her Hatterene, the seals more appropriate for a contest showcase than a fight to the death. But despite their cutesy appearance, Luka and her partner face down their opponents with the fiercest expressions they can muster.[break][break]
”Okay! Erm…l-let’s show them what we’ve got!”
The witches’ long appendage reaches out, warping the space around her with a powerful psychic attack. Pure telekinetic energy blasts towards the oncoming foe, hoping to force them back before they have a chance to properly group up and advance.

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"Ah, mm. I'll keep an eye out!"[break][break]

Glad she's able to be of some assistance, Luka keeps close to @issacmerlo and Vanilla Kingsley as they head down the flattened cliffside together. The journey down proves to be rather uneventful— which is good, but as all things in Hoenn go, simply means that the worst is yet to come.[break][break]

It's difficult to parse the scene in front of them. Spaceships and tera shards and weird herbs...what do they have to do with each other? Why was that Megalopian making mochi, of all things? And what brought them here in the first place? It's too much for her to think about here, especially as events continue to unfold around them.[break][break]

What Luka does understand about it is far more primal. Suddenly, the urge to get on that ship supersedes everything else, and her chest begins to feel tighter and tighter. Then it's hot, almost burning as a long, twisted appendage bursts from it.[break][break]

It looks like twisted muscle, and throbs in time with her own heartbeat. An oddly sweet scent perfumes the air. Luka stares at it, then back at the ship as the desire to flee manifests itself even more strongly. With it comes an almost animalistic instinct to destroy anything that might get in the way: her allies included.[break][break]

She bares her teeth and crouches low, but just before launching her own assault, a cry from Vanilla Kingsley reaches her. She blinks, staring over at the youth as she begins to flee— somehow, the girl's plight resonates with her.[break][break]

"W-wait!" Luka shouts towards Vanilla, the promise she'd made to Isaac not yet eroded from her mind, "I have...I-I need to keep you safe...s-so we can go home."[break][break]

But the insidious urge towards violence and the need to escape this place are strong. Even with the herba mystica in her system, she's unable to resist it completely. The toxic limb that protrudes from her heart flattens and elongates, forming a vaguely heart-shaped shield. It lashes out and batters against other toxic chains, those within a closer proximity to Vanilla: Elise Calcifet and Genevieve Cromwell among them (probably- fish's awareness on where everyone is rn is Not Very Good).[break][break]

Her Musharna, however, had managed to avoid the poison. Ume's heal bell rings out in an attempt to cure her trainer of this bizarre affliction, though there's no telling if it'll have any sort of effect on her, or the others under this strange spell.[break][break]

---

[break][break]
TLDR;[break]
- wearing a sygna suit[break]
- on path 2[break]
- toxic chain grows out of her heart. it's born of the desire to protect, and as she's maintained some control, uses it to attack other toxic chains in the area (Elise Calcifet and Genevieve Cromwell)[break]
- musharna uses heal bell

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The dream mist that Plum desperately tries to consume is almost dark as pitch.[break][break]

---

[break][break]
Her father doesn't say anything.[break][break]
But he doesn't have to. Luka can see everything in his face, and the pity in his eyes is almost unbearable to witness. It's not supposed to be like this- she's the one that should be mourning him, he's the one who's life was stolen far before his time. That he instead has to contend with her silly, selfish desires is almost too shameful for her to bear.[break][break]
"I'm sorry," she says, her voice small and weak. "Y-you gave me...such a gift and I...I-I'm just wasting it. I t-thought this is what I wanted, but—"[break][break]
Her voice is cut off as solid arms engulf her. Luka jolts in surprise, but she soon melts into the embrace, clutching her father desperately, sobbing an infant's endless wail.[break][break]
When they separate, she isn't reburst bound with Cresselia any longer. She isn't the little magical goddess she wanted to play pretend as. Her father's gift is on a chain around her neck as it's always been, and she's a girl again, taking simple comfort in a father's embrace.[break][break]
"You've always been enough for me," Eugene says, finally breaking his silence. "You always will be."[break][break]
"But—"[break][break]
"And you'll be enough for them too," he continues. His embrace grows weaker as the sleep loses it's grip on Luka, but she holds onto it tightly, like trying to grasp smoke. "I believe in you, my buttercup. It's time you start to as well."[break][break]

---

[break][break]
When Luka finally jolts awake, the dream stays with her. Just fragments, but enough for her to know that it had meant something, whatever that might be. She groans, feeling a dampness on the pillow under her head, and looks up to see her Musharna staring down with clear worry.[break][break]
"Hey, hey. It's okay," she murmurs, stretching her arms out to her tapir. Taking the cue, Plum floats down to settle in her embrace. "Don't worry...I'm fine. It was just a dream."[break][break]

---

[break]

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Dark tendrils of inky purple continue to spill out around the bed, nearly obscuring the woman sleeping below. Concerned, Plum tries to wake Luka, but she remains fully immersed in the dream that consumes her.[break][break]

---

[break][break]
Luka has everything she wants.[break][break]
She has power. Strength. The abilities she's so often yearned for, to actually make a difference and impact change. She's important and her existence has meaning.[break][break]
But it isn't enough.[break][break]
She's looking for something else, but she doesn't find it among the featureless faces of the crowds that adore her. She doesn't find it in battle or victory. In her desperation, she becomes frantic, more violent. She tears down enemies with abandon and hopes that this is what the masses want. That they'll shower her with more praise, more blind devotion. More, more, always more.[break][break]
But it's still not enough. Never, never enough. She wants more, needs more, because she's still missing something and her chest feels so empty and her hands are so, so cold, and she's so sad and lonely and nothing can actually manage to fix the hole in her heart that's been there since she was a child.[break][break]
No amount of power or might can bring her what she wants. The shameful thing she craves more than anything else, more than the ability to help the weak and save her home.[break][break]
I never loved you, comes Remiel Calcifet's whispered voice, haunting her ever still. Even here, she can't escape those words.[break][break]
"Please," she mutters desperately, clutching her skirts and falling to her knees. In this moment, despite the power that courses through her, she's pathetic.[break][break]
"Please," she repeats, a true plea. "I just want to be loved."[break][break]
She speaks into nothing, and it's nothing that answers her. Cresselia might be part of her, but she does not love her. Perhaps she had deluded herself into thinking the two belonged together in the first place. Even bonded like this, she's still so alone.[break][break]
Her hands clench. She feels like a child again- perhaps she still is. A little lost girl who's never been able to find what she's looking for.
[break][break]
But after what seems like an age Luka looks up, tears stinging her eyes and running hot down her face, and stares into the pitying gaze of her father.[break][break]

---

[break]

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The dream mist continues to get darker and darker. Plum watches on with increasing anxiety.[break][break]

---

[break][break]
She's done this before.[break][break]
This is more remembering than discovering. Luka knows the light that consumes her, embraces it like an old friend. She feels it chittering across her palms, filling her veins with a honey-rich warmth. She bundles it up, compresses it until it's almost burning- and it hurts, or at least it feels like it should hurt, but it hurts in the way a sore muscle aches when massaged. It hurts, but it feels good.[break][break]

The stone in her hands- the lunar wing- becomes part of her. It returns home. When Luka steps out of the light she is changed, but not in any way she doesn't expect.[break][break]

It's just like that day on Fullmoon island, in a dimension which doesn't belong to her. Only now, she's taken back what she's owed. The power of Cresselia flows through her just like it had back then: not as a captured Pokemon, not as an Avatar and their patron, but as two beings sharing a body, their souls intertwined.[break][break]

She feels like herself again for the first time in- for the first time ever, really. This is it: her true state rediscovered. It feels like she is finally back, that she's woken from an endless dream.[break][break]

Memories that aren't hers wash over her and she remembers: she is powerful.[break][break]

Luka's body has been changed. Her skin gleams gold under the light, and her hair undulates around her in impossibly long waves. Her clothes are gossamer and lovely; blue and pink silks as fine and light as feathers. Golden starlight and bright pearls drip from her neck, in her hair, around her wrists. It's everything she's ever imagined for herself: a truly celestial being.[break][break]

But for once, Luka doesn't care about aesthetics. Instead, she revels in this new power and what it means for her. She can use it for good- finally she can help people. Finally, her existence has some kind of meaning.[break][break]

In her dream world, places are a blur. They don't really matter. Luka visits them, helps the people there, and basks in the accolades. Everyone adores her, of course, because they should adore her. She's a benevolent savior, a hero. Those she loves need not ever fear Rocket, or the Triad, or any of the countless dangers that Hoenn faces.[break][break]

For her, every crisis is a paltry thing, easily solved with a wave of her hand and a surge of psychic energy. She no longer has to cower in fear or rely on others to help her. She doesn't feel weak or helpless or stupid. She's powerful, and this is the way she's meant to be.[break][break]

---

[break][break]

In bed, Luka hugs her pillow tightly and giggles, smiling more happily than she has in months.

---

[break]

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The dream mist that pours from Plum’s snout has turned from gentle pink to a mottled purple. Luka continues to sleep, albeit fitfully, but so far her bizarre dreams aren’t enough for her Musharna to intervene. Instead she continues to observe, watching her trainer’s dreams play out in the swirling mist before her.[break][break]

---

[break][break]
Time is always a peculiar thing in dreams. It shifts like the ever moving tide; years pass in the span it takes for Luka to roll over and clutch at a pillow. She's no longer a girl- her life goes by in leaping stages, from child to woman in a blink, though it somehow feels completely natural.[break][break]

The lunar wing her father had given her remains with her always. It's no mere object of sentiment- she's always felt that there's something special about it. More than just a token, more than just a tether to her father's memory. Something in it is real and alive and it's been calling to her ever since she was small. It's only here in her dreams, where reality is but a distant memory, that Luka can finally understand it.[break][break]

She clutches it to her chest, feeling a peculiar warmth spread from her heart into her extremities. It's hot and sparkling and somehow familiar, thrumming like a second heartbeat. She can feel something else as well, a current running throughout her veins: a kind of power.[break][break]

The feather feels different now. In her hands it's become a gleaming crystal- strong, but hollow at the center. She knows it's shape, can remember what she's supposed to do with it, and the feeling within her surges, as if in agreement. It belongs to her, with her. And what lies at the center is hers by right.[break][break]

With a deep breath, Luka brings the stone to her mouth, breathes in deep, and presses her lips against its glasslike surface.[break][break]

A moment later, the world goes white.[break][break]

---

[break]

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Luka’s Musharna has always kept watch over her at night. Plum’s dream mist curls around her trainer like a blanket, keeping the nightmares at bay– a dreamcatcher with perks.[break][break]

But when the interdream zone is at play, even she can’t keep Luka’s dreams entirely in check. The usually tranquil tapir’s mist turns a deep purple as stranger and stranger dreams filter through, and she watches fretfully as Luka tosses and turns on the plushie-covered bed below her.[break][break]

---

[break][break]

“Oh, oh, oh! What is it?”[break][break]

Roseate ringlets bounce as Luka sprints, giggling like mad, to a pair of legs glad in soft corduroy. At this age and diminutive height, her father is whatever part of him is closest: a pair of legs, a broad torso, a grinning, smiling face. [break][break]

“It’s a surprise,” he says with a laugh, his native Kalosian rich and warm as syrup. “Open it.”[break][break]

Tiny fingers grab at a package wrapped in tissue, prodding it experimentally. The Munna hovering at her shoulder looks on curiously, tiny wisps of dream mist curling around the inseparable pair. After a cursory examination fails to produce any sort of hint, Luka tears at flimsy ribbon holding the paper together, and holds a shining feather up triumphantly. [break][break]

“Wow! It’s pretty!” [break][break]

She twirls it between her fingers, admiring how soft it feels against them. But otherwise, it seems unremarkable, not something worth much fanfare. She gives her father a quizzical look.[break][break]

“What is it?”[break][break]

This time Eugene crouches down to speak to her; he becomes shoulders and a head, his pink curls and green eyes a masculine reflection of her own features.[break][break]

“They call it a lunar wing. A trinket from Sinnoh. They’re feathers from the Pokemon Cresselia– do you remember her from your storybooks?”[break][break]

Luka nods, but looks concerned. “Did you pull it off of her? That's mean, papa!"[break][break]

Her father laughs and ruffles her hair. "Don't worry, buttercup. I would never hurt your present. But you have to keep it safe, okay? It'll protect you from bad things. Bad dreams. You have to be careful, there's—"[break][break]

His mouth is still open, lips forming silent syllables. But before he can explain any further the shadows around him darken, deepen, and then take shape. Dark tendrils of ink rise like reaching fingertips and Luka doesn't even have enough time to scream before they engulf and swallow him whole.[break][break]

Luka stands there, clutching her feather, staring in horror at the spot her father disappeared. The shadows in the house are still once more.[break][break]

In bed, back in her apartment, she grits her teeth and rolls over, but remains asleep.[break][break]

---

[break]

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