even in a simulation, the sand feels real. her grimace is plain, but it's his question, as he appears beside her, that truly pains her (no, that's still definitely the sand). 

people die to their left and right and she does not flinch. nor would she, if their flesh was flesh, and their blood was blood.

"no," she says as she stares at the titan. "i've changed, but not because of the war."

Greyson Connors
s1BEQhQ0

☉

freya waves guards off left and right, ignoring stunned looks and the occasional questioning call. they sprint through all-too-familiar corridors and her growing anxiety makes each step a haptic shudder in her soles, a jarring of her teeth.

then there are doors and then there is the naganadel and then there is the commissioner.

yuina recovers first.

every fiber of her being vibrates with a flush of restrained anger. hopelessness clambers over her greedily, snapping brackish jaws as flashes of each aqua meeting, each council conference, hell, her awed and dumbstruck smile, shared with eva and freya's own, as they looked upon the serpent that would later become their salvation.

were you right, king? all this time, were you right?

but her own snapping jaws meet the minute fury and when the two fires clash, she is left but as embers. and so it is with care and caution that she steps after yuina, and she says, "commissioner, this naganadel was the white-haired woman's. we commanded it take us to its master."

each word is punctuated with a cautious step. her gaze darts briefly to yuina.

"and it brought us to you."

Yuina Higashi dahlia goode

☉

fortunately for her, pescis reads the subtle shifts in air with a waggle of his antennae. freya's muscles protest as the flygon suddenly veers to the right. the corviknight careens past them and its vicious talons scrabble against the prism exterior of a building. it hits its wing hard and shudders, falling down, down, down into the waiting, outstretched hands of the mad below them. 

"seems even the air isn't as safe as i thought," she mumbles as she catches her breath. she tugs back on pescis' straps and he banks. 

angled toward a flat roof that towers among most others in its vicinity, freya waves for roy to follow. she doesn't dismount when pescis flitting wings stop their nauseating movement. she sways as he lumbers towards roy and balmung. 

"there's a sky pillar here. like ours at home. but it might be more intact. i thought maybe we could find something." she looks away. "i can't give you a better answer than that. i don't even know what i'm looking for."

Roy Aker

i didn't even realize u posted OOPSIE HEHE
16 encounter pokemon who have been displaced here. 

☉

her brows shoot up somewhere near her hairline. she's not one to keep tabs on her family, and roy is a capable trainer - and now ranger - but it's somewhat surprising to hear that the delinquent she'd met at the border to another world acquired some league property. 

it's an unusual feeling, of being out of the loop on someone so important to her. with family. 

"yes," freya says sideways, and quickly, to howard when he goes to confirm his translation. so the league's weren't of this world? what about fernando's pup? she still isn't so sure of the origins of the thing - she'd promised to look into it for roy, but...

her neck feels hot with a touch of shame, but she plows past it. her grimace is minute and incomprehensible. 

"i'll set up a time for you." more lightheartedly, she says to howard, "but he's one official i definitely can't promise an autograph from."

howard slayte Roy Aker

☉

her stomach drops. as they near the hq, she thinks surely they'll veer off somewhere else. but no, it passes through the doors as though it belongs, and her face crawls with heat. shame at the spectacle. 

ori's a tight squeeze. his wingspan is too large for the hallways so when they near, freya slithers off his side and lopes alongside yuina. the tailwind is at their backs and it's all too easy to follow the naganadel in its wake - cadets and officers are left reeling, picking up after paperwork or catching their breath after their fright. 

"i told it," she says around labored breath, "to take us to its master."

Yuina Higashi
pGxOkPS|

☉

hellfire rains. their unit moves like a well-oiled machine and beneath her goggles, freya's eyes are hard and cruel. it's hard to make out their marks in the sand, but she can see well enough when their shapes disappear back behind the dunes.

vadrok squats low to the ground, feeling the shifting sands, and chirps when the coast is clear.

"let's not make it too easy for them to get out of here," freya says to her companion and lyune unfurls his wings just enough to launch himself forward and slam his heavy paws heavily into the ground.

an earthquake ripples outward and sand explodes outward in a radius from them. freya looks grimly after the perimeter and then scans her crew.

silverio delfino DESIREE BLOOMS Elise Calcifet

Steel/Ground/Psychic 300 Power
earthquake (100/300)

☉

it's hard to imagine her cousin's canid companion is made up of a bunch of those wriggling, wormy cells. she'd already been hard-pressed to admit it to being a dragon and this fact certainly doesn't help, but their makeup is too similar to ignore. she doesn't go to reach for the device, not with the iron grip roy has on it (which makes her smile), but she does get eye level to it. 

its green seams glow softly. howard calls it antique, yet it looks anything but. balmung's pokeball, she'd call antique, but this? with its smooth plex screen?

"fernando didn't have one. at least, i don't think he did." not that he'd have told her anyway. 

"have you brought it to illeana reyes or Eva Morales? to inspect the cells?"

howard slayte Roy Aker

☉

her expression crumples. she waits a breath, rights her face, and then draws back. unable to help herself - she sees delta now, here, with her long blue hair - her fingers tuck a lock behind eris' ear. 

"sometimes there really is no good or bad. there just is." she hates how she sounds like a fortune cookie, but it's her truth. the world is, tragically, not black and white. 

"all i can do is try and support you while you figure it out."

Eris Halla

☉

the tailwind helps them keep pace and as they near yuina, the wind rushes under harrow's wings too. the cityscape becomes a blur beneath them and freya hunkers down against her dragon's back. 

she spares a glance at yuina after the woman doesn't respond and sees hard determination on her face. with grim satisfaction, she brings her full attention back to the receding purple shape in front of them. they fly past the city proper. heads turn as their shadows stretch over streets. 

where are you taking us?

Yuina Higashi
i hold my breath on this roll
U_7sVv14

☉

she realizes, quite instantly, that her attempt on his life that day had been a fruitless, pitiful endeavor. despite her prowess with dragons, she had no sygna suit, no combat routine, and certainly no avatar powers. 

now, though, with king's rigorous training under her belt, her eyes dart to the movement of matias' arm. he's bigger than her, and he'll no doubt hit harder, but right as she goes to tuck her shoulder and slide out of the way, she remembers her slap to the face.

Eva Morales's hand against the grain of her scales, cut and bleeding. she throws up her arm in a cross-guard - unknowingly, she becomes a spitting image of king - angling it so his knuckles will glance off her festering skin. she simpers, ulna and radial bones aching on impact, and the air warps around her like hot tarmac on a summer's day.

it is not a closed fist that comes towards him in return, but an adder's strike from claw-tipped hands.

MATIAS SILPH

☉

grief so vicious it turned her to stone. her desperation, her cry for help, keened to a nickit who gave her everything she wanted and broke her at her foundation in return. she knew nature's madness, and she knew it well, and she knows it still, and it haunts her, and it shames her, and she wouldn't wish it on her own worst enemies. 

she wouldn't wish it on Elisabeth Fiorelli. she wouldn't wish it on this child. 

she kneels. she looks into eris' eyes and her golds are raw with understanding - with barely-healed-over-still-deeply-hidden pain - and she apologizes, softly, as she reaches gently to hold her. 

and after her sorries, with her voice a whisper, she tells her about her salvation - "the people you love, they'll remind you. they'll remind you of who you are when you think you've forgotten."

Eris Halla

☉

show me, she wants to snarl, but the words are bitten back. her recent years have taught her patience, begrudgingly so, and it is with this recollection of her faculties that she finally stops her pacing. still, every fiber of her being is taut with anticipation as she chases springing scenarios through her head. 

if they don't manage to corner june, she could run. 

and if she runs, there's a chance they don't find her again. 

and if they do manage to corner june, it could scare her off. 

she aided a known rocket. that's cause enough for arrest. her teeth ache. 

"how much," she says with a pained expression, "does she truly hate the league?"

annalise henderson

☉