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The FALSE SUN oozes and bleeds black as Primal Groudon howls out its rage and pain. The flurry of blows is unyielding and something that connects the two snaps.[break][break]

The Volatile is flung, and Lam watched helplessly as the husk of MATIAS SILPH’s body flops like a mimikyu’s broken disguise against the hard earth. For a moment, a breeze stirs and the air becomes more breathable. Just for a little bit, before the heat swallows everything up again.[break][break]

“Got it!” Lam nods to paxton concordas, teeth gritting as he fixes his attention back onto MATIAS SILPH. There’s an eerie sort of limpness to the gestures he makes—marionette mechanics pulling the sway and turn of his hands, his arms.[break][break]

And though the head ranger tries, there’s no reasoning with a puppet.[break][break]

Not right now.[break][break]

It’s difficult to avoid the tension that climbs as the mount begins to rumble with the warning of eruption. To focus on the task he’s been handed rather than the overwhelming force of nature and the groudon that spurs it. He seeks the clear minded fixation of virizion as it turns back to them, leaving the creature to rayquaza’s exacting judgement.[break][break]

As it returns, slabs of rock jut up from the ground around MATIAS SILPH. The STONE EDGES are blunt and ineffective compared to the lethality of the PRECIPICE BLADES of before, but they do not seek to impale. They shutter up around him, closing around the space as he begins to limply rise again in the air—in suspension.[break][break]

The soft glow of a pokeball pulls Poppy back as ollie morales charges the Volatile, followed close after by Melody Miro, but Lam sends out his decidueye instead. “Try to keep him still and pull him back,” he says, and Artie nods solemnly. The LONG REACH of his skill keeps them at range for the time being—until the dust settles and it feels safe to approached.[break][break]

Cloaked in spectral energy, the archer pulls a bow taut and lets the bind of a SPIRIT SHACKLE toward Matias, intending to tangle him and stop his movements.[break][break]

Lam’s mouth remains snapped shut, lips pressed in a thin line as he fixes a hard stare on the Elite Four member, then two as Melody closes in with more efforts to snap him out of it. His friend. Their friend. But he keeps guard, tense and silently willing Matias to come to and wake up from all of this.[break][break]

Or is he too far gone for that?

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Determination spurs the duo on. The further the go, the more they pick up the pace— eager to catch and overtake the mantine surfer (Jack Napier) up ahead. He’d never been too handy with mantine surfing back in Alola, but it had always been cool to watch in action.[break][break]

Though Lam definitely didn’t intend on letting him keep the lead, just ‘cause it was fun to watch![break][break]

“Watch out for all these little guys!” he instructs as he leans forward to tuck himself close to Pepper’s—making himself as compact as possible as she eases into the first of several tight turns. When she tilts, he leans with her to avoid resistance against the push and pull of the current.[break][break]

Scattered corsola bob in the water and the feraligatr bobs around them, gunning for the narrow exit that will free them from the tight spaces that close in on her bulky body.

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[attr="class","text"]Fury and pain reverberate through the bellow that unfurls from Primal Groudon’s throat. The cry rumbles across the DESOLATE LAND – a reminder that they are in the belly of the beast and intrude upon its throne room.[break][break]

But its defenses flicker. A short-circuit in its biological wiring as they push back against the magnitude of its overwhelming presence of being.[break][break]

The flash of color–short-lived as it is–jars his vision. The molten glow of crimson blares like a warning in the stark monochrome cast by the FALSE SUN. Lam squints at it, at the stare of blinking, pervasive eyes before they shutter closed as the vermillion glare recedes to gray again.[break][break]

One[break][break]

by[break][break]

one[break][break]

by[break][break]

one.[break][break]

And then there he is.[break][break]

“Matias!” He’s shouting before he fully realizes that his mouth has opened.[break][break]

DIE.[break][break]

It’s crude puppetry, the command of his words twisted into something guttural and devoid of mortality. The garbled language of a being that knows little of what it is to be ensconced in humanity, but makes the poor attempt regardless. An ill-fitting suit.[break][break]

More PRECIPICE BLADES shutter out of the ground rapidly like the shhnng of swords being whipped out of sheaths. With the intent to pierce fragile flesh and soft, weak spots.[break][break]

Lam switches gears, looking to Virizion as the sharpened pillars of earth begin to detonate–shrapnel exploding outward with even more force. “Give us cover first!”[break][break]

He’s always been more of a shield, anyway.[break][break]

The sword of justice acquiesces to its placeholder’s request. The dome of its PROTECTION flares to life against the hail of bullet-fast shards of stone.[break][break]

“Now!” Virizion strikes out again– the slice of LEAF BLADES slashing out at Primal Groudon’s legs, attempting to weaken its movement.[break][break]

“Matias!” he calls again, echoing paxton concordas as he attempts to reason with The Volatile. “Listen to him, he’s right!” Unbidden, Lam’s own recent conversation with his friend lifts to the front of his mind.[break][break]

“It was easier in Kanto. The only thing I had to care about then was surviving. But here, in Hoenn, there’s just so much else.”[break][break]

Maybe I should just pick the path that will ensure my survival.”[break][break]

“This isn’t actual survival!” Lam draws toward Virizion again, careful to remain in its shadow as it stands at an angle that can shift between MATIAS SILPH and Primal Groudon.[break][break]

No, this seems like the opposite of survival. For Matias, the man, anyway.

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Despite the flygon’s speed, the sudden spray of icy shards shot out at a pace too swift to dodge. Ladon turned, bracing as sharp cold and ice battered against his tough hide and buzzing wings.[break][break]

The beat slowed with the cold, though– making it much more difficult for him to take off into the air as initially planned.[break][break]

Rising at a hover, the dragon bobbed as he attempted to shake off the chill. It was a heavy blow, but not one that knocked Ladon out of the game so easily.[break][break]

Green eyes studied the creature attentively–attention briefly darting to the sturdy sandslash. Personally, he found the Alolan much more durable than the Kantonian. (Maybe he was biased toward his home region, though.)[break][break]

“Obscure the area!” Lam instructed, and slowly but surely, the flygon’s wings began to buzz rapidly again out of stubborn willpower.[break][break]

The upturned and cracked earth that remained from his prior attack rumbled and broke down to a finer silt as the wind raged to a whipping howl. Chunks of rock and clods of soil tumbled through the air as the pitch became fuzzy in the wake of a SANDSTORM.

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[attr="class","text"]He lets go of the leaf and the next moments unfold with a furious pace that he can’t keep up with. The bellow that groudon lets loose swallows all sound, it reverberates through the atmosphere and he swears he can feel the fury of it down to his marrow with how it makes his bones hum.[break][break]

The jut of several PRECIPICE BLADES volley toward him in rapid succession. Lam winces, the realization that he cannot dodge fast enough to avoid injury, or worse, sinks in like cold dread despite the overwhelming heat of the mount. He shrinks away, limbs tensing and then bracing for the impact of stone slamming into him.[break][break]

The gut wrench of the air being driven from his lungs, his chest hollowed out.[break][break]

Or the spike of being pierced by a sharp edge.[break][break]

The dismay from knowing he’d have to explain some new injury to Ikarus Rook, and the promise that he’d be careful broken. Again.[break][break]

The regret of not being able to speak to him in that moment.[break][break]

The regret that he didn’t do more for MATIAS SILPH now.[break][break]

And then regret dies right then and there, because the impact never comes.[break][break]

The sharp woosh of something flying past him clues him into the fact that he’d squeezed his eyes shut. When they squint open, it is to the sight of a SACRED SWORD cleaving the stone to leave him unscathed.[break][break]

He breathes out, and he’s certain his heart has dropped down to his stomach. He almost can’t believe what is right there, laid out for him. But when he turns, there they are.[break][break]

Virizion swathed in the flutter of viridian leaves.[break][break]

They don’t speak, but Lam understands the request all the same. He can feel it, like a whisper against his ear, or the gentle push of a spring wind. Pursue what is just, what is right.[break][break]

He wants to protest, because who is he? He isn’t the right person for this, he hardly feels capable of even being here now. Doubt flickers through him—not for the others, but for himself. What if he is the one who fails? What if I’m not strong enough? he wants to ask, though maybe it’s there in his expression as he watches Virizion’s eyes for some sort of flaw in their resolve.[break][break]

There is no time for doubt.[break][break]

He didn’t come here to falter.[break][break]

So Lam extends his hand to the sword of justice and accepts the bid with a nod. Whatever he can do to help, he’ll do it.[break][break]

He just hopes that he is enough.

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The weight is there on the Elite Four’s shoulders. A heavy burden whether he cops to it or not. There doesn’t end up being any time for that, anyway.[break][break]
He raises his hands to his mouth and whistles a noise that sounds more like a bird call. It brings his decidueye out from hiding— at the ready.[break][break]
They fall into position, prepared as they can be.[break][break]
Turning to look back at Greyson, a crooked smile perched on his mouth. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes and there’s still concern somewhere in his stare, but it’s set aside for now.[break][break]
Because the answer comes naturally.[break][break]
“‘Course I do.”[break][break]



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