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He watched her carefully as she approached, brows furrowing together at her warning.
“Uhh, okay.” Again, he didn’t really know what she was getting at, and really he questioned himself as to whether or not he should
really be giving her the benefit of the doubt, but it was a little too late to start reconsidering.[break][break]
Doing his best to heed her instruction and
not panic proved to be a little difficult as she warped reality around them with no more than a subtle wave of the hand. Bright green eyes widened, his head craning around to take in the change in the landscape as the beach filtered away without the aid of the interdream mist that had been seeping through the island.[break][break]
“Woah..” Lam gawked—of course he did. The blue sheen of tera crystals cast a glow throughout the space. As the scenes played themselves out, Lam’s face lit with recognition.
“Oh, her!” Her face popped into his mind in the form of pictures in a RVL route. He’d forgotten about it
entirely. He was quick to grow silent, though, as she took a turn toward menacing.[break][break]
His expression fell to something furtive as the world around them shifted and recorrected itself to the proper reality. When the woman began speaking again, Lam remained silent. His mind scrambled to keep up with the information that had just been dropped in his lap, arranging it and putting together the larger scale of things that it indicated.
“I recognized her,” he said after a moment,
“from that game.” He shook his head, missing the obvious question,
“How’d you do that?” [break][break]
So had this DRK Triad or whatever been behind
that too?
“Doesn’t seem too friendly.” But that’s what she’d been getting at this whole time, wasn’t it? Lam’s attention shifted to the unown that hovered close to her, head tilting curiously as it stared with its ominous eye. Somehow, though, with this added knowledge, it felt a little less foreboding.[break][break]
“Well, they obviously trust you for a reason,” he said after a beat, nodding at Kallistatus, though he really meant the unown as a whole.
“I can’t say you’ve got me hook, line, and sinker,” he added, shoulders rising and falling in a shrug,
“that’s…a lot of info. But—“ Lam hummed, lips pressing a thin line,
“I do think this conflict is unnecessarily conflated.”[break][break]
Maybe that was incredibly simple of him. A take that would’ve raised the eyebrows of other officials given some of the more ardent stances that many took against Rocket and their efforts. It didn’t
negate everything, of course it didn’t. But did that mean the League was wholly guiltless too?[break][break]
Probably not.[break][break]
There was pressure that came in the form of expectations he’d felt from others. To be a strong and exemplary member. To be a bigger person. But it felt…
burdensome too. He wanted to protect, but he didn’t like the price that some seemed so willing to pay for whatever idea of justice had been put forward.[break][break]
So maybe that’s why he found himself stepping to the side, a hand rising to smooth over his murkrow’s feathers to soothe him. A brow arched as she practically gave him an objective and a
name. He didn’t know
Isaac Merlo well—only as a challenger at his gym.
“The Visionary, huh? I’ll see if I can get in touch.”[break][break]
But for right now?
“Go then, I’ll act like you didn’t knock me on my ass a bit ago.” The corner of his mouth climbed in a lopsided smile, and he shot her a two-fingered salute before he released his altaria again—though not to attack. His tone took an air of warning jest.
“You better be right, Visionary. I’m counting on it.”[break][break]
Mallow’s cloudy wings stirred with the wind as he slipped onto her back. As she rose into the air, Lam called down to her in afterthought.
“Oh! And thanks for the existential crisis!”
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