Chapter XXX
Nova lowered her spyglass and leaned over the railing, peering down at the sea beneath her ship. The wind at their backs was swift, forcing the seas to crest against the wood as their ship cut through the waters – straight and smooth, like an arrow from a bow.
None of the other gladiators came near her, save Barry. Rumours had spread like wildfire that she had been the one who had poisoned that other gladiator, that her Luxray had ripped out his Floatzel's throat with his teeth and eaten its liver raw. Even now, she could hear some of the gladiators aboard her own ship whisper about how she had seduced the poor man.
Nova felt for the cape behind her – its gold burning scarlet in the sunrise. Her ship was in the lead, beating the ship with the orange flag by far.
But something had felt odd about it. The orange ship had been in the lead from the second they had started on the east side of Pastoria. But then, they had slowed suddenly – taking down their sails, letting her ship and her gladiators hoot and howl as they passed it.
And, besides, she had heard the rumours for herself. The gladiator that was captain of the orange ship had been a pirate long before he had become a gladiator.
It made no sense. Almost as little sense as some person she didn't even know asking another gladiator to kill her.
She heard Barry step behind her, heard her Roselia murmur something. While her poor friend had assured her that he was feeling better now about his Staravia, Nova knew it was a blatant lie - after all, he had even asked Prinny to stay on the shores, even though she was a water-type.
"Why would they slow down?" Nova asked them. "Why wouldn't they keep going if they were in the lead?"
Barry shrugged. "Maybe they wanted ta' see what me arse looked like?"
"…or maybe they saw something up ahead…"
Whatever it was, Nova felt ready for it. She felt ready for the miles of blue above and below her, ready to face the other gladiators and whichever bastard killed Bebe.
And she'd do what she always did: fight with everything she had.
So, she leaned against the railing and spat into the sea.
"Come at me, bitches."
It was only minutes later when Nova realised that, once again, Darkrai had been right. There had been something the orange ship had seen before her, something they had purposely backed away from.
A storm.
Barry had already marched across the deck, barking orders with a voice of steel. His words were drowned out by the curses and songs of the rising seas against their hull, the wailing that swelled and crashed against their faces, the lightning that licked so damned close to their ship.
It wasn't a natural storm – she knew that much.
Some blasted Pokémon had made it rain.
Nova heard Leila cry out from the deck, and raced to see what the Roselia was pointing at. At first, she saw nothing but the gnashing swell of the ocean's jaws, the rolling steel-blue of the waves.
Then, she saw the scales. The long, serpentine body. The red eyes, the razor teeth, and the skin that was blue as the sea.
And it was cutting just below the water, swarming towards the belly of her ship.
"Gyarados," one of the gladiators cried out behind her.
Dozens of them. Maybe more – each one a flailing length of muscle with a mouthful of swords. And though she couldn't feel it herself, Nova could see the sliver of fear the pierced through the gladiators around her.
All except for Barry, who frowned and asked, "What's a Gyarados?"
"Let's just say that you should pray to Arceus," one of the gladiators told him. "Pray to Arceus, but also keep rowing for shore. Because even Arceus might not be able to save us."
"Oh. So, I take they're not nice?"
Nova looked at the Gyarados gathering before her, making the ship creak and groan and sigh.
"I really should not have called them bitches."
The rain was like spears against their faces as six Gyarados rose from beneath, using their tails to try wrapping around the ship from below. Nova could only watch in horror as one swiped at the foremast, and half a dozen gladiators were sent screaming off the deck and into the waters.
"Cut it!" a gladiator called out. "Otherwise it'll drag us under!"
A few of gladiators drew their blades and started hacking at the Gyarados, desperate and wild. They were mere annoyances to the beast, though; like tiny little Chingling buzzing around its scales. Even the few Pokémon that had been sent to fight – Pelippers and Quagsires and Azumarills – barely seemed to land a scratch on it. They were all too hesitant, all too fearful.
But with Darkrai riding in her shadow, Nova had no hesitance – no fear – as she brought her sword down in a scything arc. The Gyarados she sliced was as broad as a barrel, its skin as tough as leather, but her sword cut through it deep enough to make it howl and writhe back.
The other Gyarados went mad with rage, smashing, flailing, and splintering at the railing – snapping the foremast off with an ear-piercing crack. Nova shuddered as more gladiators fell, as their boat tipped, as some of her own people moved down into the thrashing waters where the mouths of Gyarados awaited them.
Barry was hacking away with his own sword, a single Gyarados writhing around him. Nova almost paused to admire the strength in him; he was drenched in the Gyarados's blood, and yet, he spun around, water spraying, always listening. His blond hair slapped his face as he brought his blade down again and again, severing the Gyarados, and he sent it back into the water with a single kick.
"You okay?" Nova called out to him.
He cracked a grin. "You really should not have called them bitches!"
With a shake of her head, Nova turned to her side – where another two Gyarados were rising from the water. She shouted for Leila, and there her Roselia was, ready for battle.
She and Leila fought side by side – harder than ever, sadder than ever, toughened from miles of death. But still, they whirled and swayed like partners in some bloody waltz, a sword moving in time with vines, moving as one as they fought their way across the deck. Hewing. Slashing. Spinning.
The waters crashed down upon them, but sure enough, with a final burst of petals, the Roselia sent both the Gyarados splashing into the water.
Nova watched as her Roselia screamed for more – her sweet, sweet face dark from the rain and blood. Watched as the grass-type darted to the other end of the deck, lashing out at the other Gyarados that the gladiators had been struggling with, sending every single one of the bloody beasts hissing back as she screamed and tossed her vines towards them.
Her gladiator only stared, stunned, as Leila came back to her.
It seemed, after all, that The Annoyingly Happy Roselia had learnt a thing or two from Rhys.
"You're a mad little thing, aren't you?" she asked the small Pokémon.
Roselia smiled just for her. And a part of Nova could have lived in that moment forever.
By then, most of the Gyarados had gone under – pressed down by the bellow of the waves.
And Nova realised she had a completely different issue.
Their ship was almost gone.
Another wave hit their starboard, nearly sending the whole ship lurching over. The boat's spine was so twisted – so twisted that it was close to breaking – and the oceans were still thrashing, the rain was still rolling, and the sky was still as black as night. Leila the Roselia reached out with a vine and caught Barry before he stumbled off, and Nova held her best friend tightly to her.
Their ship was sinking. And, once it sank, the other ship – the one with that blasted orange flag – would overtake them. Because now that most of the Gyarados had been sorted…
"Our ship is gone, Barry," Nova told her friend. "We've lost."
Barry frowned. "Well, that's shit."
"Aye. It's shit."
But Leila the Roselia wasn't taking it. She kept shaking her head, reaching out with a vine to tug at Nova's cape, urging her, reminding her that-
Each week, I get the ships ready, and you gladiators are separated into ships, and you race.
First cape to reach the shore wins.
Nova heard Wake's words in her head, sharper than ever. And she reached out and planted a kiss on her Roselia's head.
"Leila, you bloody genius," she said. Then, turning to the other gladiators, who were clinging onto their lives – some of them already hailing their flying-types and water-types to carry them to shore – she said, "We don't need our ship to win! We just need this bloody cape to make it to shore!"
A few of the gladiators paused for a second. Thinking about it. All they needed to do was get the girl with the cape to the shore.
Then, one of the gladiators – one with an ugly face that Nova had already hated from the second he opened his mouth – laughed.
Because, at the end of the day, the gladiators were not really meant to work with each other. They were there to kill each other.
"I say, we kill the girl, take the cape, and get to the shore!" he called out. "Every man for himself!"
And Nova could only sigh as she watched all the gladiators slowly nod in understanding.
Kill the Twinleaf gal. Kill the one whose name had taken over the Veilstone Colosseum.
"Well, that's not great," Nova said.
Her shadow hummed in agreement.
"…so much for being captain…"
The timbers along the ship cracked and buckled from both the pressure of the waves tearing it apart, and the weight of the gladiators tumbling across the deck – desperate to put their blades into Nova's heart and take the cape.
Barry stood atop the port stairwell, Roselia with him, the grass-type bringing one of her vines down in an overhand swing. The woman she had hit paused, giving Barry time to split her skull with his own blade. Nova stood atop the other stairwell, plunging her sword through a gladiator's chest and kicking him backwards, sending all the gladiators behind him sprawling.
She decided that it was a lot easier to kill when her own head was nearly getting axed every third second.
The deck rocked again as a wave smashed into the bow. The broken masts of their ship trailed heavily in the water, ready to drag them all below, and as Nova slashed at another gladiator, her heart raced.
She was too busy fighting off her fellow gladiators to stop the other ship from reaching the shore.
And if they made it to the shore before her-
They would lose.
A gladiator charged up the stairs with his blade drawn, teeth bared. Nova caught his thrust on her sword, turned it aside. Then, she saw Roselia wrap him up in vines, ribbons of green seizing hold of his arms, legs, throat, holding the gladiator pinned and thrashing in mid-air.
With a little shout, Leila the Roselia tossed the man into the ocean, then, feeding him to the Gyarados.
Nova only had a second to smile down at her sweet little Pokémon. For, all around her, the ship was crumbling – masts and spine broken, seas still crashing into it like an axe.
They couldn't possibly swim the rest of the way – not with the Gyarados in the ocean. Nova had left Bailey in the inns, and even if Bailey had been there, there was no way he could have flown both her and Barry to the shore.
There was no way, unless-
Nova watched as Leila's vines tore at a Gyarados that had begun to rise from the water.
And, as the Roselia turned back to look at her trainer, both of them froze. An idea blazing in both of their heads. A crazy idea. An insane idea.
But no more insane than staying on a dying ship in an ocean full of Gyarados.
Nova raced to Barry's side, carving her sword into gladiators that stepped into her path and tried to rip the cape from her back. One of them had even ripped out a small chunk of it, and, in turn, Nova had slapped him square in the face and sent him lurching back.
"I need you to hold on to me!" Nova yelled out to Barry as she reached him.
He instantly listened, letting her navigate his hands so that they were tightly wrapped around her waist. Then, Nova called for Leila, pointed at the iron-grey sea, the gnashing swell of the waves.
Leila the Roselia's rose extended out into a vine, wrapping around Barry and Nova tightly. Then, with her blue rose lengthening out into another long vine, she wrapped it around the nearest Gyarados.
Then, all three of them stepped off the boat.
Nova felt a moment of weightlessness, the sensation of falling, her best friend in her arms and nothing but death beneath them both.
But, before they could plunge into the sea, Roselia's vine released the Gyarados and latched onto another. Bringing them back into the air, their breaths hollow, even the Darkrai silent as they moved across the storm.
A blink. A flicker of lightning. And the Roselia had released the second Gyarados and was already tightly holding onto a third, skipping across the beasts like a stone, dancing through the waves but never touching them.
Nova laughed as the miles melted away. Laughed as she realised that she was passing by the ship with the orange masts. Laughed as each Gyarados tried to snap at Leila, only to have the Roselia latch onto another one a second too quick – a second before the beast could catch them with its jaws.
Vine after vine, latch after latch, skip after skip, Nova caught sight of the pale shores ahead. Caught sight of Legionary Wake, shaking his head in amazement as he grinned. Caught sight of all the pirates, cheering as the Roselia swept them well ahead of the two ships, as she used her vine to latch onto the wooden pillars that held up the pier.
Even Lady Spiral and Lord Backlot were there, aghast and delighted. Shocked but amused.
Leila's grip on the pier snapped just as they nearly crashed into the wood, and instead, the two gladiators and the Roselia fell onto the sand.
Nova didn't bother jumping onto her feet. She just ripped the golden cape from her back and tossed it into the sand beside her, raising a not-so-nice finger in the air as she called out to the ocean.
"Take that, bitches."
And, as Nova heard Barry laugh and felt her Roselia jump into her arms for a hug, Nova felt herself finally and truly begin to do something she had never let herself do before.
Believe.
Four crystals, and no deaths? Strange.
Happy Valentine's, folks! Well, it's Valentine's for me. Since, Australia.
Anyways, a few fun facts!
So, for those who were wondering, I named Wake's wife 'Lady Spiral' for a simple reason: the ship in Sinnoh that takes you the post-game places (Fight Area, Resort, Heatran's pit of hell) is called S.S. Spiral. It makes sense for the ship to eventually be named after her one day. Similarly, I kept talking about amity and amie in Fantina's Gardens, because that eventually becomes Amity Square, no?
Also, back to the point about no deaths. Fun fact: when I initially started the nuzlocke, this story was supposed to be super quirky and funny and set in a contemporary world. 'November' was supposed to be your average teenage protagonist. Then, I got to this point and was like... No one has died and we are four gyms in. How is that... How will I make that an interesting story? So, I changed Nova to the girl she is now, and I made the worldbuilding more fun. Hope y'all are enjoying!
