azume | Eighth.

Eighth.

ENCOUNTER.

It's been days since you were brought here.

Or, at least, you think it's been days; even if it's not something you're necessarily unfamiliar with, the stagnation of time and space are likely taking a toll, as is the fact that it's impossible to become spatially oriented in this place. The rotation of the walls to become ground beneath your feet, the floating patches of land with their bizarre floral biology, the pools of water flowing silently and horizontally directly above your heads... It's all a bit much to take in, a bit much to acquaint yourselves with.

Perhaps it isn't meant for you to become acquainted with at all.

The massive creature here with you has been becoming bolder over the last few hours; it's difficult to tell what's gotten into it, but its path through the shadows has been bringing it closer. Once in a while a sleek, sharply-spiked body can be seen twisting its way through the darkness; sometimes long, black tendrils with wicked-looking red tips are seen cutting through the shadows, each of them far larger than you are, before disappearing again into nothingness. It seems to fade in and out with the contours of the abyss; sometimes it disappears entirely, only to reappear so close to the patches of land you've taken to standing on that it feels liable to collide with them, that it seems almost like you can reach out and touch it if you wanted to. Whatever it is, your Pokémon don't like it.

You can tell just by being in its presence that it's one of the old ones, one of those whose memories span far longer than most of you can comprehend - one that's always been, since the creation of the world. An ancient and powerful entity, and there comes a point on one of those passes that's too close for comfort that it doesn't pull away and disappear again.

Instead it stays, and its head breaches the darkness, and it finally lets you see it.

It's massive, alarmingly so, in the same way that Dialga and Palkia were massive - not just in physical size, but in the way that something about being in its presence makes you feel very, very small. Its body is long and graceful in a way that's almost repulsive; it doesn't set down anywhere near you, or anywhere at all; instead, it simply is, hovering before you in a way that commands the stagnant, empty space before you, floating over the abyss like it was meant to be in it, like it's been here for longer than you likely care to imagine.

Those long black tendrils ripple a little as they stream out behind it; its body seems to glimmer in the darkness as it watches you from behind bright, red eyes. For the time being, it doesn't seem about to attack; just the same, it's watching you very, very closely.

What happens from here is, evidently, your call.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[...Alright, well, this is. A start, if nothing else.

Camilla straightens up a bit, her hands still kind of occupied and at least attempting to maintain some air of dignity while dealing with three different scared people and Pokemon. Alright. The pressure is certainly a lot but she can't falter here.]

...You have our apologies, for intruding improperly upon your domain. [Just. Stay calm.] But...if I may...you have kept rather distant; understandably so. Is there perchance a reason you have decided to show yourself?

[And that does get sound out of it, deep and incomprehensible - to poor Melady it likely sounds like some horrid cross between R'lyehian and some sort of Black Speech, indecipherable and at least moderately terrifying, but to human ears it likely sounds...well, like a beast of some sort, more or less what one would expect from something like this.

It shifts, tilting its head a little as it continues to stare; if it has another answer, it doesn't seem to be terrible forthcoming with it.]

[...Yeah, the way Melady seems to jump and almost squeak in response kind of gives Camilla some ideas. None of them exactly pleasant as she feels the poor Drifblim just kind of wrap around her a little tighter, but if anything, it helps her posture a bit. If she had a free hand, she'd be petting the poor thing, but.

Well, as it stands, Camilla does keep herself neutral and somewhat poised. If the creature wants to continue looking, she'll let it.]

...Was it perhaps curiosity?

[Another of those deep sounds leave it, though after a moment there's something else that will likely come, sharp and sudden, to your attention - something seems to open in midair, hovering above that abyss in much the same way as the portals to whatever dimension Dialga and Palkia reside in had come into being. Inside them, however, isn't the unending eternity of time and space, but rather images, brief and flashing before your eyes: images of the infinite splitting beams of light crashing to the ground that indicate Judgement is being passed, images of towers and cemeteries and memorials, images of a world silent and still and empty, and there's a feeling that comes from the creature as all of this is shown to you - there's an anger there, an unmistakable anger, as well as the sudden intrusive feeling that you know what it's trying to show you, and when the words come it's sudden and forced and it seems to come from all around you, from within you, all-encompassing and intrusive.

YOU CAME HERE TO DIE.]

[Ignis repressed a shudder, reaching to grip Camilla's hand tightly.]

No. Not this time.

[And there's that odd force again, the shifting and pressing of words and feelings and still there's that rage there -

THAT IS ALL YOU ARE GOOD FOR.]

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