after the rest of the gym leaders have voiced their opinions in turn, with the scratching of her tablet pen on its screen a soft sound in the background to show she's listening, she clears her throat. she brushes some sandwich crumbs off from her spot on the table and packs her things. 

"thank you all," she says. "for your insight. we'll take this into account when we make our plans. in the meantime, stand by for orders. if we intend to evacuate the public beforehand, it will be done with as little warning to rocket as feasibly possible.

"i trust you all to not discuss this operation after you've stepped out of this room." 

she resists the urge to look at FERNANDO SILPH and nods instead towards Navy. 

GYM JAM

☉

dragons are not sympathetic when they are hatchlings. salamence in particular grow with their siblings until their egg horns fall off; and then the males fight until the other has been torn limb from limb, devoured to bolster the victor. it's an uncommon practice nowadays, among dragon breeders. 

freya's family was no exception to this, but her father's most prized salamence were raised with the old traditions in mind. 

but vodnik and melusine are a different story altogether. they came from the mist fully formed, but their bond is that of kol, unshakeable and unbreakable. she hadn't remembered before. not until she poured over her journals and took blood to pen and thought remember, remember, remember again. 

they lay with each other in a meadow and watch the clouds roll by. and they ask each other, at the end of all of this and all of everything, will they find their way back? will things change? will it matter?

vodnik snarls in pain and freya is snapped back to the flurry of teeth and claw and wing and the hateful, resentful sneering of their adversaries. through the amalgamation of limbs, charged with different types of energy, she spies eva and though she knows she can hold her own, she urges melusine to disengage. 

and instead her dragon bellows in frustration and anger, teeth wriggling against the hide of the naganadel that dare strike her brother, wings flared as she calls the storm to her aid.

jayden cross Elisabeth Fiorelli Eva Morales

☉

despite his meddling, she overcomes. it's a shallow victory and every bit as emotionally exhaustive as she thought it would be. they exchange few words, though she thinks for a brief moment she sees murder in his eyes when lyune finally lands back down on the ground, chest heaving. 

the dragon and his draconid accept their commendation with little more than curt nods, and then they're gone. 

she does not kid herself in the aftermath. she does not deign to think she made any sort of lasting impression. she may have cracked him, broken through and burrowed under the exterior, but he has a habit of shifting tectonic plates and wiping the slate clean.

MATIAS SILPH

☉

xen is there to catch her. freya looks away, tongue in cheek. there's always a toll to that must be paid. the outstretched hand from tapu fini, its other wrapped like a manacle around its avatar's wrist; the gluttonous stare of wo-chien prizing its next meal. 

she can't imagine what creatures like the unown might demand of someone and though she cares little for the person they've chosen, the man choosing to tend to her is hopelessly stuck in their orbit. 

whoever this parker is is the least of his worries. hurt still festers like an open sore in her chest, painted over quickly with irritation and violence.

"don't linger here, king," she says. thin veins of worry twist through the bulk of her frustration. her shoulders sag as she turns. she glances at eva and then walks off, knowing she'll follow.

they still have duties to tend to. they still have roles that must be filled.

KING WAYLAND Naomi Sato Eva Morales
OdABmh|Q

☉

to think that his pokemon could harness that which dragons are born from. he may be the volatile, but when she came into this world, it was kicking and screaming, and the blood she took was the first stain of many. the close combat draws the hitmonlee near, but lyune surges backwards just as easily, wings flaring and catching the thermals provided by the heated landscape. 

reptilian eyes flash and so too do the golds of his trainer's. he banks hard, tucks his wing, and dives down, shattering the earth with a thunderous clap. an earthquake fans out in all directions. 

"oh, but no one can humble you, can they?" she says. "to put it simply, i won't waste my breath. words are nothing. it's your actions i'm more concerned about."

MATIAS SILPH

☉

taking down these things hasn't been impossible, but the sheer volume of them running around down here has gotten in the way of a few expedition teams. with enough firepower behind her, she could take at least one of them down herself (she already has), but she needs someone there to watch her back.

and this one had either volunteered or been assigned. she hadn't looked too closely. after a once-over, she'd thought, we're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, and that had been that. 

"yes, i have," she says and pushes past some fronds. she crouches in the dirt and examines the tracks they've been following the last quarter mile. 

an incredulous stare is given to the girl. her sygna suit, with its pauldrons designed with draconic filigree; her choker, in the likeness of a salamence's wings; the salamencite in her hair. she reeks of the dragon version of a horse girl. 

"dragons are strong against each other. i'll be using my own. as long as yours don't get in the way, we'll be fine." she straightens. "what'd you say your name was again? and which sect are you from?"

june sleigh

☉

she thinks that, perhaps, the follow-up will be better in the simulated universe. that it might take the edge off. that it might give them some means of distraction. all in all, she doesn't want him to feel that her anger at alexei have anything to do with him. 

she's still frustrated at what this has come to. she's still frustrated at how divided they all are. and she knows they have every right to be. there are people, worse than those in rocket, that they praise and adore. 

he'll slip up, she tells herself. he'll slip up and they'll catch him and justice will finally be had. 

she turns over the pokegear in her hands and describes the logo to hideo, then places it down. 

"i wanted to talk about what happened at the gym leader summit."

Hideo Kino

☉

"you remember the first ultra beast invasion," she says and looks away from him, back towards the grotesque scar down lyune's side. she ducks under the fold of his wing so she can press her palm against the limb. it's been so long since it happened. 

"the guzzlord that was the size of a skyscraper. the one that almost leveled mossdeep." bodies twisted in the streets, buildings felled. if only they'd known then that all of it was just precursor. 

that the real horrors hadn't shown their faces. 

"he was hit by a hyper beam from it, if i remember correctly. shot us out of the sky." and then had come her first real taste of otherworldly power. mega evolution had emerged that very first day, but she...she had felt something different. 

a primal energy flooding her dragons, funneled through her, birthing the devastating drake that took out the beast. 

oh, what a fool i've been. how long she's run away from her past when hints and pieces of it have been there, waiting, discarded and forgotten because she swore it was too painful. 

she shakes her head, releasing the memories. 

"we've come a long way since then. alex's brace here connects to his saddle." she gestures to the mechanical constructs around his wing. "but it still hurts him to fly."

John Sullivan
i remembered to roll
f1lGn8gN

☉

there are so many who don't remember those harrowing years spent in a timesick universe. jayden cross' memory is another epitaph scored into her journal, marked with blood and spilled ink. if she hadn't lost so much already, she may have found more room to mourn him.

in that instant where eva pulls her back, where her atoms are broken down and reconstructed, she is brought outside of herself. she is made to see his smile, the weight off his shoulders, a crown set neatly upon his brow.

don't you remember, eva? don't you remember how he loved us?

a ball at her hip wrenches itself open. even if the professor doesn't, her roaring moon does. calcifer is drawn back in a beam of red light. the smokescreen is thinning. blue scales shimmer to elisabeth's right. she can't give elisa an opportunity to strike while eva is engaged. 

crackling electricity sizzles from melusine's maw as she attempts to bite down on the naganadel's wing. 

jayden cross Elisabeth Fiorelli Eva Morales

☉

it's an almost alien feeling, listening to navy talk about tsubaki. before she took the council seat, those few months where she was able to start to get to know delta - they were still awkward. she misses her. she misses her dearly. but there is a pride in his voice that is so unmistakably familial and it makes her question if she'll ever have that. 

will she ever get the chance?

"this is why the amnesty program's so important. to show them all that not only can they do better. we can do better." we can forgive. we can change. we can do right. 

Navy

☉

"only five minutes ago, you said you would live in your shame and be humbled," she says with another skittering laugh. lyune twists about in the air, but no matter where he goes, the hitmonlee does not miss. and so she snaps; the last of his bullet punches meet a hexagonal barrier. 

a courtesy of his brother's gym badge.

"or have you forgotten that lie already?"

smoke curls around the field. bits of it still burn. and the last of lyune's barrier disintegrates; behind it is another swell of fire. 

MATIAS SILPH

☉