Panne entered the museum lobby expecting to squint at the lights, but found that it was just as dark as last night. Of course they were closed. Who was going to come to a museum during a squall as bad as this? Vallion came through the double doors shortly after her with the same righteous look stuck on his face. There was no arguing with him now. Whether he had his memories or not, he certainly acted like the same person. They passed beneath a line of rope and started towards Hydreigon, who had been idly browsing the exhibits in the mean time.
"There you are! Took you a while," the dragon called out from across the way. "...But why is Vallion with you? Did we need him in order to acquire a ship?"
"I'm going, too," he quickly replied.
Panne just shook her head. The scarf on her wrist stung against her fur. "I told him what was happening, and about the deaths. Now he's refusing to let me go alone. We've finally got a safe place for him to stay and everything! You- you don't even remember how to fight! Why would you want to go out there when you can't even defend yourself?"
"I told you that I'd figure it out. I've gotten decent at using my vines. Attacking with them probably isn't much different." The Servine looked down at his feet, blinking at his reflection in the polished floor. "I'm not going to just keep running away. People are getting hurt because of me-because I'm stuck in here, waiting. The Spiritomb is my problem! I'm the one it's after, anyway."
"I'm not going to let you kill yourself, Val! Don't you understand? This isn't about being a hero or- or taking responsibility! It's about survival! We're trying to survive just like anyone else out there!" She choked back a sob. "You promised that you wouldn't do anything stupid and get yourself hurt."
"But I'm not the Vallion that made that promise!"
The Hydreigon cleared their throat so loudly that it reverberated off the ceiling. "We aren't fighting the abomination. We're getting a ship. These are two entirely different tasks. We will return here after having completed the latter, and that will be that. Honestly, I've never heard Mew be this argumentative with anyone. We've got work to do."
Work. Of course, there was work to be done. Always with that work, were they? Panne huffed and stomped off towards the western displays, claws digging into her palms the whole way. She almost forgot to beckon Vallion along. "Whatever. If we're going out there, we might as well be ready for anything."
They stopped at a particularly reclusive part of the exhibits behind some far more impressive displays. A row of small glass cases lined the far wall. Each one housed a stand for a powerful looplet, but some of the cases instead held a laminated sign which read 'IN USE' in large red letters. Vallion's eyebrow cocked the longer he looked. "So what does being ready mean, exactly?
"We're explorers. We find powerful artifacts in places pokemon haven't snooped around in centuries. Being ready means we're not so stuffy that we lock all those goodies away in dusty old jars." The Braixen pressed her nose to the cold glass, feeling underneath the lip of the table which held the displays. Her fingers eventually found a row of five protrusions along the bottom-barely noticeable if you didn't know they were there. "Ah, hold on. Let me see if I can remember this off the top of my head. I don't want to go get Kadabra just for this..."
It took three attempts, but Panne did manage to stumble her way into the correct password. A seamless hinge within the glass popped open with a satisfying clunk. She bit at her lip and plunged her arm into the display, stretching all the way across two other stands to get at the looplets she wanted. The first brace was covered in glittering silver etchings that flowed from one end to the other, illustrating vortexes and gales melting into one another before coming to a jagged collision in the very center. Humming to herself, the Braixen brought the Tempest Looplet to her neck and squeezed the far ends together, her scarf like a cushion to keep the cold metal away. Was this thing thinner than the last time she used it?
The second brace she had nabbed from the display was strikingly blue, embellished with veins of gold that never seemed to get scratched or wear down. Even just holding it made her feel more awake and energetic. Panne held it towards the Servine. "Put this on. Don't mind the little slots on the side. Those aren't really going to be important anytime soon. At least, they shouldn't be."
"What does it do?" the Servine asked as he timidly took the treasure into his vines.
Shrugging, she swallowed at the lump in her throat. "That one pretty much just makes you feel healthier in general. Food is more filling, sleep is more restful, pain is less...painful. I know it doesn't sound particularly exciting, but it's not like we got many choices left. Almost everyone that left the continent to look for Hydreigon probably took one along."
Vallion started to fumble with the looplet, trying to find a place where it would feel comfortable and click the ends together at the same time. After a few seconds of watching the endeavor with little success, Panne stepped forward and placed her hands on his vines, guiding them towards his midsection and bringing the brace together just below his collar. Her hands froze up on contact with his skin, but she wrested control again and pulled away. She was getting that desperate, huh?
The Hydreigon hummed impatiently from afar. With nothing left but her own internal grievances, they finally started towards the exit. Diagonal lines of rain slammed into the ground from beyond the two glass doors. Their final moments of dry comfort were filled with the dread of what was to come. It was going to take days for her tail to puff up again after this. That's not to mention how much that rain was going to sting. Sometimes Panne liked to wonder what life would be like if she wasn't a fire type, and now was definitely one of those times.
As soon as the clear doors were unlocked, a gust rolled by and rattled them in their frames. She didn't even bother preparing herself for the storm as she threw the doors open and let the raindrops blast her in the face. Every little hair on her body dragged on the wind as she pushed out. Hydreigon shouted above the din. "Captain or ship, whichever will come first! Lead the way and let's get this over with!"
Panne experienced a lot of hindsight within just the first few moments she braved the storm. For one, there were probably dozens of coats and clothes all over the compound she could have put on, if not for her distracting quarrel with Vallion. She also remembered why she never, ever left the building whenever it was this stormy out. The force of the wind alone was nearly enough to push her over at times. The ocean churned with an intimidating intensity, the white ridges of the waves coming disconcertingly close to the top of the docks.
The reliable brick and concrete beneath their feet gave way to a pier of creaking planks and doubt. Even just feeling the ocean's rage batter the supports was enough to make her knees weak, but it was even worse to peek through the cracks and see the water itself. The resounding impacts of the ships bouncing off the rubber barriers of the docks certainly wasn't helping. Although the design made it so that weather like this posed little actual threat to the ships, the fact that such large objects were being thrown around with such immense force made her stomach jump up into her throat.
Focus. The Braixen shielded her face with her arm and crouched low to give herself less lift. What was she supposed to say to Pelipper, anyway? What could she possibly suggest that would convince him to lend them a ship tonight? As she staggered towards the tiny wooden building that seemed like an impossible distance away, nothing believable came to mind. Seriously, what was she doing out here, miserable in the pounding rain while Val was fuming about something that wasn't even his fault? Wasn't returning to the Society supposed to be the big leap that made their problems easier? She grit her teeth and instead concentrated on taking one step after another.
Finally, they drew near the lonely office at the opposite end of the pier. The promise of shelter pushed Panne through the last stretch until she arrived at the door. Her numb hands wrapped around the lever knob, slipped on the metal twice, then thankfully managed to hold the damn thing down. The difference in air pressure meant that she had to slam her way in. A rush of warm air slipped past as she crashed into the small lobby. The others came very shortly after her, with Hydreigon shutting the door behind them with an unintentional thud.
Though her vision was blurred beyond belief, Panne caught a glimpse of Pelipper as he flew into the room, squawking with surprise. "What in Kyogre's fins is going on in here? Who would want business now?!" He landed on the front desk with a thud. "...Panne? Vallion? I thought you were still on vacation! What are you doing here?"
"Well we came back," the Braixen groaned, wringing out an entire waterfall from her fur. "It's a long story. It's a very exhausting, very long story."
Hydreigon stuck his dripping head out with a grin. "Hello! You wouldn't happen to be a competent captain, would you? Or own a sizable vessel? Or both? I'm sure someone would be able to make it worth you while at some point!"
Pelipper stared at the dragon for a good few seconds before he turned to Vallion. "Who is this guy, anyway?"
"Important," the Servine replied before Panne could steal the question away. "Listen. We've got a big favor to ask, and I don't know if you're the right person to be asking right now, but I'm going to try anyway."
"Uh. S-sure, what is it?"
"We need to leave town tonight, or as soon as possible. We need a ship and someone who can get us out of port killing us. Can you get us those?"
"Right...right now? You're serious?" Pelipper seemed to do a double take, his feathers puffed up in disbelief. "Val, don't you remember that charter ship you guys had to pay off a year ago? The one you crashed into a reef? Why on earth would you-"
"Because we don't have a choice this time!" shouted Panne. "This is an emergency! I don't care about the stupid storm right now! You think I can't see it? You think we don't know how dangerous this is? Yeah, it obviously sounds suicidal, but we've got our reasons and we don't have time to argue!"
The flying type began to pace listlessly across the length of the desk. "So what's the emergency supposed to be, then? Why am I only hearing about this now? I have a Connection Orb! Someone could have called me at some point! Just because I'm not one of the adventurers doesn't mean I'm not still a member of the Society. Come on, seriously! Nobody told me..." Pelipper trailed on beneath his breath, trampling over a pile of blank forms.
Vallion sighed and stepped to the side of the desk. "Who cares about the context? Can you do this thing for us or not?!"
Pelipper hopped down and started back towards the only other room in the tiny building. "Ugh. what a bother. Follow me into the back, I guess. Even the big guy if he can fit. I don't know what's up with any of this but if you're that desperate then maybe I can do something. Maybe. I don't know."
The office itself was a mess of scattered documents. There were papers hanging halfway off of bookshelves, papers stacked on top of filing cabinets, even papers draped over the end of Pelipper's wooden perches. It did seem organized in a chaotic sort of way. Kinda like Mawile's room in the middle of projects, Panne thought. In the far end of the room was a small fireplace that was just barely chugging along, its meager warmth threatened by the suction of the storm at the end of the chimney. With the dark clouds above, that fire was pretty much the only thing lighting the room. Nearer to the ceiling was a little display which held Pelipper's Society badge. It hadn't really seen much action, but it was as official a symbol as they came.
Puddles began to pool beneath their dripping bodies while they waited for Pelipper to feverishly sift through the cabinets. The howl of the storm filled the building, with a rain-blasted window providing a higher pitch to accompany the bass. Hydreigon kept their eyes trained solely on the flying type while he searched. Vallion glared out the blurry window as if locked in a search for his loathsome enemy. Panne still had another bathtub worth of water to push out of her coat, a lingering stinging sensation erupting across her skin.
"Hmm...No good. 'Course it's no good." Pelipper continued to mutter to himself. "And that one's out of the question, too. Oh, this isn't going to work! If I would have known earlier, this would be less of a problem! You guys are asking for something that's pretty much impossible! And it's not like anyone going to let you take anything out onto those waves, anyway! You're better off figuring something else out!"
Hydreigon shook his heads. "There is little else we can do. Any longer and we may give the abomination too much time to prepare. Not only will more lives be lost if we don't lure it away, but we may lose the opportunity altogether."
"A-a-abomination? Lure?! Just what are you guys doing?! Does the rest of the Society know about this? I'm not doing anything if the rest of them aren't at least aware of it! Do you know how much trouble I'd be in if you got yourselves killed over something I helped you get away with? It's crazy! It's insane!"
Somewhere in the middle of Pelipper's shouting, a distinct heaviness washed over Panne. She nearly fell backwards, a sudden itch in her throat quickly evolving into a burn. It was Vallion that began to cough first, however, with Pelipper falling into a fit shortly after. Hydreigon raised all three of their heads in shock. The storm outside strengthened as the dark presence descended upon them, but it only seemed to get quieter somehow. Every instinct inside of Panne screamed to run. That's how she knew it was too late.
"Such a brazen move, coming here like this!" the dragon spoke up almost gleefully. "I'm glad I'll finally be able to see you with my own eyes! Show me what you truly are, demon!"
The fringes of the glass began to darken, almost like a shadowy frost was crawling across towards the middle. Panne postured herself in front of the Servine, who unraveled his vines and tried to edge by her in the same motion. The burning sensation in the back of her sinuses brought tears to her eyes. She blinked them away and saw the window bulge inwards, millimeter by millimeter, until a shrill crash filled the air.
Fragments of glass and water droplets both exploded over her face. The Braixen winced away and sucked in as deep a breath as she could hold. Grasping winds poured in through the opening, but a cloud of black had completely filled the gap, and once the fireplace was blown to ashes, all light seemed to fade. The Tempest Looplet tightened around her throat, and the meager flames that danced on her palms grew to three times their original size. The black mass launched itself into the room in strands. She blasted away four of them, thinking they were coming straight for Vallion. They weren't.
Pelipper screeched as he was engulfed by the Spiritomb. Panne hesitated in her confusion, merely watching as the suffocating cloud nearly stole away with the flying type. Hydreigon slammed past her and collided with the blackness, a trail of blue flame carving away from their central mouth. They grabbed the bird in one of their maws and turned towards the two of them. "Not here! Run!"
They plunged back out in the office, where every candle had been blown out and the walls quaked with the force of the storm. Hydreigon tossed Pelipper behind the counter and braced the door to the office with their entire body. They had won the moment, at least. Releasing her flame, the strangling grip of the looplet around Panne's neck finally loosened, allowing her to gasp.
"What? What? What? What?!" shouted Pelipper as he took to the air, flapping wildly around the room. "What is that?! What happened! Why is it here?! Why! Why! Why!"
Shaking from head to toe, Vallion whipped at the wooden paneling as if to prepare himself. "Leave them alone! You hear me, you monster?! I'm the one you're after! Quit hiding like a coward and face me already!"
What replied from behind the door was the same mangled mess of voices that Panne had heard at Revelation Mountain. The Spiritomb's uproarious laughter scraping the insides of her skull like jagged metal against concrete. She grabbed the sides of her head and winced. The door splintered down the middle from a single devastating blow, and a second came shortly after to blow the Hydreigon across the room. The wooden shrapnel careened through the lobby and shattered yet another window. In the doorway was its face: sunken into the fog like a hideous indentation, shifting and amorphous, filled with hate.
The looplet squeezed again. Panne threw a surge of fire into the snarling visage of the ghost at the same time that Hydreigon launched a trio of grey distortions. The demon's screech sounded like something out of a schizophrenic's nightmares as it withdrew back into the destroyed office. Pulsing like a fresh wound, the black smoke poured out from the corners of the door and spread in all directions at once, and it came fast. They had no choice but to press back out into the storm. Even Vallion, who was so ready to throw his own life away moments ago, knew that this was a battle that couldn't be won here. He bashed the entrance of the building open with a struggling Pelipper in his vines and waited for her and the dragon to follow.
Escape was going to be more difficult than just running away. The wrath of the weather bore down on them so that physically running was next to impossible, unless they wanted to be lifted up and deposited into the ocean. Even Hydreigon with his powerful wings could barely stay steady in the maelstrom. Behind them, a rising mist seemed to consume the insides of the building entirely, leaking out of every crack and opening. It had at least quadrupled in size since she had fought it the first time, and even then there was no way to tell how big it really was from the outside.
Hydreigon, on the blessings of a sudden draft, flew by the Braixen's head and scooped Pelipper up into their jaws. Panne had to drop to all four just to come even close to keeping up without being swept away. Vallion, with his vines now freed, reached back to Panne and wordlessly offered to pull her along. A brief glance backwards revealed the rolling mass of blackness that billowed towards them like a tsunami over a beach. The Spiritomb didn't even appear to be affected by the wind at all. She looked at his vine and smiled, then she let go and turned around.
Panne took a wide stance and dug her claws into the wood. Elbows back, palms forward, she stole a breath from the surging winds and held it deep within her chest. Her looplet responded in kind and strangled her airways. The monster was about eleven seconds away. Vallion's shouts were nearly completely buried beneath the din, but he really should have been running. Five seconds now. Short-lived embers peeled off her fingers and an immense warmth built up inside her, hotter and hotter and hotter yet! The Spiritomb flooded into her vision until half the sky was consumed by its form.
Panne stomped forward, brought her hands together in front of her, and shouted a breathless war-cry. A great orange flash exploded out from her arms with such force that it nearly knocked her aside, the wave of sheer heat overcoming even the stinging cold that stuck in her fur. The demon's body lurched over her as its bottom half was so suddenly blasted apart. The lingering flames were quickly doused and blown away, and in the fallout of the massive attack, Panne's temples began to throb with a nauseating, indescribable ache.
The Spiritomb's ugly scream reverberated for what seemed like miles. Disoriented, the Braixen tried to scurry out from beneath the arching curvature of the demon before it came down on her head, but she was still stunned from the pain. Vallion reached into the wave as it folded over her and yanked with all his might. The vines wrapped around her waist winded her a second time. Her leg caught on some of the crashing mist, which felt so supernaturally cold that her skin started to burn like frostbite had taken hold. The Servine yelled something to her that went in one ear and out the other. Clutching her head, she took in a huge gulp of air and pushed to a stand.
It was already too late to dodge the monster's retaliation. She looked up just in time to see the cloud swell inwards and launch a bolt of its own grey energy, colliding squarely into her shoulder sending her sprawling backwards across the pier. It took all the strength of her claws just to catch herself before she slid off the edge into the deathly waters. In spite of the new pain, Panne cloaked her arms in amplified fire and took off running towards the Spiritomb. It was in the process of cornering Vallion when she charged back into the fray. As if one blow would have been enough to stop her! She carved into the monster's surface with two sweeping waves of flame. Its whole form shuddered from the twin blows, giving the Servine just enough time to escape.
The monster turned towards her with the motions of a vortex. Dozens of its black tendrils shot out from its center of mass like spindly fingers. Even if Panne had dodged with the wind, there were simply too many of them to escape from. Smaller, more controlled blasts of fire were needed just to keep the majority of them at bay. Sheer number prevailed before long, catching both her wrists and one of her ankles in a vice grip and pulling her to the ground. Flashes of green came out of nowhere and sliced through the tendrils even more cleanly than her own flames. For each finger came another two devastating whips, one after another. Vallion wasn't going anywhere.
It was just the two of them, Braixen and Servine, side by side as they stared down the pulsating grimace of a mistake of nature. Like how it used to be. Like how it was supposed to be. Glancing out the corner of her wind-blasted eye and seeing that brave expression on his face was like looking back into the past. It was the closest Panne had felt to him since he'd been stolen away.
That vivid moment ended with a crash. The Spiritomb had reared up like a beast on its hind legs and came down onto the docks with such might that the planks splintered. The reverberations of the blow sent them off balance, granting just enough time for the monster to line up another charge. In the ensuing confusion, Panne had fled in one direction while Vallion went in the other. As soon as the Braixen realized this, she was just about to turn around when two more lobs of shadowy energy whizzed past her head, one of which nicking the end of her ear. It wasn't going for him anymore. Worst of all, now she's given it a head-start.
Her frantic path took her through a maze of barrels and crates, stacked in organized pyramids and somehow heavy enough to resist the winds. As Panne slid over the unloaded cargo, she picked up lighter containers with her telekinesis and tossed them at her pursuer. Most passed through the Spiritomb like stones through water, and every attempt only added to the migraine that throbbed in her skull. Explosions of splintered shrapnel and resounding crunches filled the air from every time the demon brought its weight down on the docks. She could feel the debris shoot into her back. It was coming closer by the second.
Panne's foot finally caught on something. When she fell, she fell hard, slamming the bottom of her jaw onto a crate and crumpling to the ground. The taste of iron started to fill her mouth as she grabbed at her snout. The sky above her went from grey to sheer black, blotted out by the all-consuming form of the Spiritomb. She only had the time to take in a single breath before she was consumed in a sea of frigid liquid. Last night's dream came flooding back into her mind all at once.
The currents were impossible to resist. The Braixen kicked and paddled to no avail. A thousand tiny knives raked across her skin every moment she spent trapped in this weightless hell. She wanted to scream so bad. Every last ounce of her willpower worked to keep her mouth shut, but the shouts still bounced around in her throat. Her only chance at escaping was to gather that single breath and make it into fire. She told herself that again and again, but nothing came of it. No warmth ever formed in her lungs. No control over her own body. Spinning. Freezing. Dying. She needed to breathe. Please.
The vortex was interrupted and the currents suddenly stopped. A quake of force bounced through the liquid and into her. Then another. A brilliant dawn of light filtered through her eyelids as the storm's wind blasted into her once more. Panne hit the ground with a hard thud and gasped. Half her vision was still filled with the Spiritomb's bulging form, but a pulse of blue light had carved a sizable dent into it. The silhouette of a Hydreigon flew out in front of the clouds and over the black. She woke up from the living nightmare with a jolt, stared up with wide eyes at her foe, and sucked in the ammunition for her revenge.
She must have gotten four or five volleys of flame in before the Spiritomb even remembered she was there. For as loud as she screamed, and as many dents as she put into its body, nothing was earned. Maybe she should have just ran while it was distracted, or tried to fling something more hefty with her telekinesis. Maybe she should have done literally anything besides rampage against it like an upset toddler, choking on the artifact around her neck as she tried to attack a round hole with a square peg. The cloud reared back, solidified at the end, and swung itself at the Braixen. There was a moment where everything went black, and in the haziest beginnings of a conscious thought, she noticed that the ground had disappeared.
Water. Cold, turbulent water. Swallowing her again. Panne's open wounds immediately began to sting from the salt. It woke up the primal functions of her muscles, kicking and clawing just to try and right herself in the sheer violence of the waves. Her head pieced the surface for just a brief second, but what should have been an opportunity to breathe was wasted as she vomited up the water that was already in her mouth. It took several more tries just to get a good gulp of air in, but the ocean was merciless. Unforeseeable waves pushed her back down into the abyss over and over. Her legs were beginning to slow down. She didn't have much fight left in her after all that.
Between the panicked numbness and the perpetual motion sickness, Panne could hardly tell that she had been grabbed. There was certainly something keeping her afloat, since her own limbs weren't putting in this much work. It turned out to be Floatzel when Panne did get a good look. Even with his incredible mobility in the water, the best he could do was keep the from being swept beneath the waves any more than they already were. The situation felt just as hopeless as before.
Floatzel shouted something to the sky. A shadow rolled over them seconds later. One moment she was riding on the crest of a wave, and the next she was jerked up into the air. Hydreigon's arms squeezed way too tight, but it was so much better. Better than everything before it. Sputtering out entire mouthfuls of water, Panne was just happy to still be alive. Even better was that Vallion had been scooped up as well at some point. She would have embraced him then and there if she wasn't being towed out of this mess.
...
"What. Did you THINK. WOULD HAPPEN?!" Even while he dressed her wounds on the front carpet of the museum, Floatzel shouted the Braixen's ears off. Though his verbal lashings didn't hurt nearly as badly as the rest of her. Still soaked and dripping, her deep bruises ached bad and her skin burned like she'd been steeped in acid. But at least her nose was clear. "Dammit! Pelipper, down the main hall and go two doors down. There's a supply closet to the left. Go get another first aid kit."
Pelipper made a frantic salute and took off with a few hurried flaps. A silence fell shortly afterwards. Some tense seconds passed before Hydreigon decided to speak up, but their voice sounded tinier than ever. "Don't blame them for this. It was my idea to go out in the first place. In my haste to get things moving I had neglected telling anyone else. And I underestimated the tenacity of the abomination. I didn't expect it to come so soon."
His brow as furrowed as it could be, Floatzel turned away from the dragon. "You're lucky you're quick. And you, Panne! It's not like you don't got a head on your shoulders! You didn't have to follow through with such a stupid idea! Pretty much as soon as you left, I had gotten another report from slightly earlier in the morning! This time it killed a Ludicolo in broad daylight! We knew that the Spiritomb was active! YOU knew that! You were the one that was freaking out about it in the first place!"
"Even if she didn't go, I would have went with Hydreigon anyway," Vallion answered, having to peer over his shoulder at the water type because of the side he was forced to favor. "Pokemon are dying because of me. The longer I'm here in the city, the more victims there are going to be. I have to leave as soon as possible."
Floatzel turned their frustration towards him. "What? Where are you even planning to go? What were going to do about that storm? Nobody's going out for groceries in that goddamn mess! And that's not to mention that ghost monster taking advantage of it! You can't just leave! What if Hydreigon hadn't come back to tell me about this in time? Panne would have died! You would have probably died after that, too! How would that have saved anyone?!"
"I-.." the Servine turned his eyes towards the ground once more, unable to muster up an excuse.
Panne just held her head in her hands, shivering still as Floatzel finished patching up what he could. "We can't just stay," she started to mutter. "I'm not comfortable with any of this. As much as I really don't want to go out there, he's still right. I don't want to stay here, either. I don't want that thing in town."
"Nope, it's not your decision anymore. You two lost that right after you nearly died today." The water type clapped his hands against his sides with a sigh. "Now that everyone's involved, we're going to make those decisions for you at the assembly we were supposed to have. You know, the one to go over our next course of action? Together as a group? Hydreigon?"
"Yes," the dragon promptly replied, still staring out the wind-battered glass doors.
"Yeah. Now stop trying to die on purpose! Wait for the rest of us before you start doing that next time!" Just as Pelipper began to fly back with a first-aid-shaped bulge in his bill, Floatzel waved them away and took off deeper into the museum. Pelipper got confused and tried to follow after him after circling the lights for a few moments. The storm outside pounded on the doors trying to get in. Even in here, there was no escape from it. The demon would bear down on every wall and window until it finally hunted down its prey. She never liked the noise to begin with. She hated it worse now.
Vallion shot a glance towards her, which she returned out the corner of her eye. He was still breathing heavily. "What are we going to do?"
"Convince the others," Panne managed to say as she sputtered out more saltwater. "That's all we can do."