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It's strange. Xenon felt nothing for Howard, if anything she felt something akin to active disdain for the man who looked to the past with starry eyes. But his words for her as he walks by, the simple statement that he believes in her... It's an unfamiliar sentiment for the girl who's done nothing but push away those around her, leaving everyone behind to chase the future. They're hollow words, nobody truly believed they could kill a God, not even Xenon held any true drive to break Kyogre.
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But even so she disdained its existence, all of these "Legends" that people worshiped so readily, they annoyed her beyond compare. Nobody believed they could beat them, not unless they banded together like roaches to swarm them. It was a failure to dream, to believe in pushing beyond predetermined limits and do the impossible. They accepted so readily that "I can't beat that, it's a god." Kazimir too, maybe not to the same extent as Howard, but she knew that his heart wasn't in it either. He would help to drive the whale away, but to truly defeat it? To kill the beast of the sea and make the world just a little safer? No, he didn't believe in himself either.
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Howard had approached this battle with that mindset from the very beginning, even with his own Legend under control he still refused to even conceive of the possibility that he might have a shot. He had lost from the very first move, approaching this entire situation with the goal of "recruit Kazimir" rather than "capture Kyogre." At least, that's what Xenon thought as she pelts the killer whale with an endless barrage of shining gems and pulsing seeds, the storm roaring around her as she holds tight to the rail, so tight that it feels like her fingers are going to meld with the metal and she's going to become one with the boat.
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Perhaps there's some truth to that thought as she feels the skin of her right hand freezing to the cold metal, the release of Regice dropping the temperature of the area another few dozen degrees as it blasts the avatar of the sea with a freezing cold Hyper Beam. Miniature pellets of hail pelt her from every side and cut into her face, but the Ultramodernist doesn't even flinch as she keeps her focus squared solely on Kyogre. At the end of the day all they could do was manage to drive the whale back as it dives under the surface of the waves, the combination of the Regice's furious attack, Xenon's coordinated assault, and Kazimir's last minute contributions enough for Kyogre to determine this prey just wasn't worth it.
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"Annoying. You're all so annoying." Xenon mumbles with a dark look on her face as she peels away from the railing of the ship and stalks off towards the main hold, all of her Pokemon returning to her side and surrounding her as the storm continues to rage on. She had so much she could say, but her mood was well and truly ruined after this annoying little spat with the whale they had come to hunt for. Ultraprimitives like these people just annoyed her beyond all belief, idiots who lacked the capacity to dream. That's all Kazimir and Howard were to her, just two fools stuck in their ways. "Find me when you feel like evolving into a Butterfree, Caterpie guy. Until then, continue writhing in the dirt."

howard slayte Kazimir Wynter

NOTES

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