lyune had watched that day, as interested as his mistress, when navy fought, soul to body, with shuwen against their stubborn dragon. maybe then, freya wonders, lyune had seen the bonded strings between them, those same ones that can be pulled into the physical realm and made real.

used, in the form of sygna suits.

navy takes a comfortable seat and she stays standing. a shift to her side is mimicked by lyune, their breaths synchronous in anticipation of the fight ahead. 

"not my style, but i've been called a hermit before," she says. 

Navy

☉

the venom isn't unfounded, but freya's all too curious why the words are steeped so thoroughly in acidity. she'd wondered the same of the others, and of the rest of the league. nomi's genuine demeanor hadn't swayed freya in totality, but so long as eva fights on her side...

there's little choice to be had. 

"maybe the drk triad will bite too," she says thoughtfully. 

and they'll end up spun into another reality or worse. 

"if there are things to be learned down here, we'll find her. and if we don't, they will."

PENELOPE LIVY

☉

this is a man who nearly died running from his past. who was saved, in his final hours, by a deity who deemed him worthy. she's never trusted the reasons the gods choose their worthy, but now she feels she watches him as suicune might have. 

this is not a final stand, but he fights with a tenacity swathed in gravitas. calcifer burns away the toxic projectiles, but he dare not get between isaac's david to the naganadel's goliath. 

the ultra beast chitters in its alien tongue and next isaac and luck & pluck advance, it dodges. zephyrus and calcifer are fast, but neither expect the venomous dragon to completely ignore its engagement and plummet toward them. 

not them. 

freya twists, fingers skipping over the hilt of her sword and to the empty ball on her belt. empty, but registered. and when she wrenches it free, the naganadel stops suddenly. its warbling sounds like laughter. 

"after all this time," she breathes, "and it's been down here?"

Isaac Merlo

☉

proper training or not, the roaring moon displays incredible control as it attacks the fallen gouging fire. the sweltering heat subsides and both she and june are left looking more or less like wet rats. she shakes out some of her hair with a grimace, raising a brow when she offers her a pokeball. 

it's knocked out. she can't just leave it if she's offering her the capsule like this. 
 
"first lesson's free," she says as she swipes it from her hand. 

june sleigh

☉

calcifer can't activate her sygna suit, but she can't worry about that right now. she's seen how fast these creatures are and besides, isaac is already leaping into action like some sun-blessed paladin. 

awe skitters over her as he sails, impossibly so, up and to the waiting beast. its eyes flash, head tilted, and when it slashes at the air where it expected isaac to be, she realizes it's not looking at him at all. 

it's looking at her. poison sprays towards her just as zephyrus' draco meteor rocks into its side. she fingers her cape, dragging it in front of her, but is spared the worst of the spray by calcifer. the charizard swoops down to take the brunt of the attack, maw dripping with angry fire. 

he spits back and the air turns smoky and sour. 

"this doesn't make sense," she seethes. "there are paradox pokemon, but i haven't seen any wormholes. they're - " how did it get here? recovering quickly, the ultra beast shakes its head and looses a thick, pulsing beam of draconic energy in a wide sweep. 

"isaac, watch out! cal, knock it down!" 

Isaac Merlo

☉

her lips curl. she's not good at jokes on the best of days and in the heat of the moment like this, mood soured after the rest of her time spent down here, she has to bite back the urge to um, actually when it comes to taming.

"don't worry about it. the draciary will be there if you want to stop by." she steps back a few paces and gestures for june to do the same. that oppressive heat returns dramatically as the pseudo-entei slams into the ground. 

lyune flares his wings from above, casting a shadow while slowing his descent. freya looks towards june's roaring moon and reaches for a pokeball at her belt, cursing when she realizes she doesn't have any left.

june sleigh

☉

ever since finding micolash, freya has been on edge around the naganadel. there are only so many hours in the day and her follow-up to the startling epiphany surrounding Yuina Higashi and her naganadel has been brought back to the forefront, though has consequently made her realize just how thin she's stretched herself.

so a small part of her is here for answers. petra is an added bonus - too many brilliant minds have abandoned hoenn and if one is so willing to come back to their ranks, in any capacity, she welcomes it with open arms.

"very," she says. her sygna suit is dormant, but it still adds a necessary layer of protection. 

the last time she was here, Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki was made a monster. 

she won't allow that to happen to anyone else.

"we think it's abandoned of megalopolans, but we can't be too careful. micolash should be able to steer us clear of any of its kin."

PETRA MONROE

34. allow a nihilego or poipole/naganadel that you own to guide you safely through the realm

☉

when the call comes, she mourns the loss of one of hoenn's best. only recently has she begun to cast aside any what if thoughts that try to needle her, but this one is not so easily discarded. if angelo and skyler hadn't left, would the seas have been so merciless? would this toxicity have spread?

the trainers around her are exhausted and some are worse off than others, faces who've no doubt answered every distress signal they could while she turned away to other duties, safely confined by four walls. 

her teeth grit. 

lyra's goo is dribbly. her life dew waters have been spent on some of the ailing, but now she squares off against the latias. some measure of trust must have been granted, as the latios pays them no mind save for a scant, frustrated wail. 

they don't fight this battle with fire and teeth and claws. lyra distracts, defending against blow after blow, viscous poison flinging about, while moxie slithers closer. when the dratini finds a moment, she strikes. her glittering scaled body wraps around the latias' arms; healing wish burns away scraps of the toxic chain. 

it breaks free all too quickly and freya catches moxie when she falls. 

POISON PATROL - LATIAS
+3 mochi

☉

white sclera shows around robin's blue eyes, erratic as the panicked question he asks her. she turns the blade and this time the tera crystals glitter down at her. with a sigh, she shoves it back into its dagger and crouches by the water. sharp nails trail over the water. the silver of her sygna suit gleams.

"katherine could pull the distortion world into our reality," she says.

"kyle can resurrect people from the dead."

"tapu fini could - " 

she snaps her hand back as though it scalds her. revulsion knifes through her and with a blink, she does not see the tera crystal pool before her, but a steamy bath. a hand outstretched. 

"legendaries give people the power to do terrible, terrible things. he wouldn't be the first."

Caleb Harcourt

☉

"no," she says, "not him. not roland."

lyune is on the field now. it's freya's first time in the newly refinished elite four member's quarters. it's a far cry from callan's simple aesthetics and resembles a man cave more than anything else, complete with a full bar and tvs. 

her nose had wrinkled, but she'd said nothing about the renovation choices. the promise of their upcoming battle is still thumping in her veins. 

"last year, i watched you and shuwen fight vortigern. that day, you promised us a battle." lyune rumbles lowly and spits embers. "you promised him a battle."

Navy

☉

there are so many nightmares that haunt her. shadows on the edges of her bleary vision at 3 am stints in the office. it's not instantly that she pieces it together, not in the wake of her recent past, mixed with the grisly sanguine portrait of a decade unmade and an other-self shell. 

but the body knows. the body reminds her of the horror when she'd found thalia, shard of teeth embedded in her tongue and the roof of her mouth, belly split like a gutted fish. the white foam stained crimson.

and then to Gwendolyn Conway, tear-streaked face and shaking like a leaf in her lap while blood poured down her dragon's front. 

his hands were like blades.

his entire body was just crystal.

not like shining crystals you see in caves, but dark ones.

so it's not a monster after all. Zev Harcourt, another puppet for the gods.

there's the shink of her sword being drawn. she stands over the pool and calcifer turns his head, looking up at her. she stares at the reflection of herself in the blade, eyes raking critically over the bruises under her eyes, the scars on her skin. 

"then we work off the assumption rocket has another avatar." her wrist turns, caleb's face replacing her own. she watches him this way.

"and we deal with him accordingly."

Caleb Harcourt

☉