Her heart ached painfully in her chest as the words spilled unbidden from her throat, her mouth betraying her in the worst way possible. These were things that were supposed to stay on the inside and yet they all flew from her like a flashflood in the wake of a soul with which she could trust her deepest secrets. Wasn't it Devyn that she had first broached the question of masturbation with three years ago? Wasn't it Devyn that she had told the day after she lost her virginity? Wasn't it Devyn that had cared for her through the worst of her depression and the height of her glory? Wasn't it Devyn that she shared everything with like she would a sister if she had one? It was and it always had been.
There was a bitterness to what had occurred the night before and it sat heavily upon her conscious as he lay comfortably back in the webbing of the hammock. Arms crossed behind his head he reeled at the information that he had been given. Reporters had all but begged the former Champion of Sinnoh for exclusive interviews after she threw the fight with Dawn, people had thought that she had lost her edge and didn't dare think of the alternative. The fact that she was hoping that someone would take her title away didn't seem to cross their mind, the world was in an uproar when the very next year she took her title back. They didn't know that she had gotten bored, it had been a slow year for Blue Archeology and a slow year meant that she had nothing to do.
She had gone all out against Dawn slaughtering the young woman's airheaded thoughts that she had somehow earned the title either by her skill in battle or her skill in bed. Cynthia thought that it had something to do with Dawn's betrayal but Devyn didn't think so. There was a shrewdness to it that didn't speak of something that petty being the motivation for what she was doing. Personally Devyn was convinced that she was being offered both money and power something that the teenager would jump at the very second she got her hands on it.
Cynthia had gone on to tell her about her enigmatic Dragon Master Erin Lynch Kirkland Braddock and the events that had led to her sleeping with the other woman during their exploration of the Whirl Islands. The secret hope in Devyn's heart had been that Cynthia would finally realize the full extent of what Dawn was doing to her especially at the admission that her just once had turned into just once per night. A part of her glowed with the satisfaction that the hardworking, determined Cynthia had been physically satisfied for a time.
A point that she would have to congratulate Erin on the very next time she saw her, she knew first-hand how hard it was to keep up with the sexual appetite of the Champion and would envy Dawn like half of the world if she wasn't playing the position of the true lover for Cynthia almost every time she visited Slateport.
She stretched as much as her position would allow and rested a hand against the small of the blonde's back staring up at the lightening sky and sighed contentedly. The conversation had had begun on Devyn's bed and lead outside to the one place where if Dawn wanted to listen in she would have to sit on the porch because the plate glass door made no sound and the windows were coated with a special polymer that was designed to dampen the sound of the wind and rain of the autumnal storms that rocked the Southern Tip of the Connectivity of Hoenn.
-ooo-
Closing his eyes Devyn begun to doze and had just nodded off for the third time that night when Dawn's rosy light filtered across the two serenely relaxed figures laying together on the hammock. The wide bleached netting kept their bodies comfortably aloft beneath the hand knit purple and grey afghan that fought off the slight chill of the ocean breeze on mid-spring morning.
Cynthia lay with her head against her friend's chest, exhausted both physically and emotionally completely oblivious to the hateful eyes of the teenager standing just beyond the smoky plate glass door searching for something to justify her screaming at them. She found nothing but knew that she knew she had been listening in for a while, after she admitted in the common tongue of the League affiliated countries she had started with a long string of the foreign tongue of the Independent Nation of Hoenn. The musical language was wonderful to hear but made about as much since to her as the hieroglyphics on the walls of ruins.
She tried to wrap her head around why Cynthia would want someone else to touch her, why she had chosen to spend the night with Devyn and not her. She was hurt because the Boss had been right; Cynthia was just using her for her own personal gain. A sexual conquest, another notch in the bedpost and her admitting that she slept with Erin was just another piece of evidence against her.
Her eyes burned hatefully into the man her girlfriend was curled up with, his upper shoulders and chest were heavily muscled and she could make out the distinguishing tattoo of the Guardsmen on his shoulder. The perfect circle was at the place on his bicep where the arm met the torso covering the complete roundness of the ball-in-socket joint. The two leg like lines came parallel to one another down his arm at an angle so they ended on both the on either side of his bicep, the jagged lines extended one down the front of his body to stop just above his nipple and the other down the back of his body to hit just above the end of his shoulder blade. The red inked thing should have meant that he could be trusted but his bare upper torso made her wonder if he was all nude, made her jealous even as the logical part of her brain screamed at her to use her common sense.
The logical part of her brain remembered the conversation that she had had with Cynthia about the man, the sibling like relationship had been explained to her as best as the Champion could manage which wasn't very well to start with, a concept she was unable to relate to as an only child who acquired friends like she acquired pokemon. For her own gain when they no longer benefitted her she moved on and made new friends. "Devyn is like that sibling that you love and you hate and you love but you can't stand but who understands you more than anyone else and who you understand more than anyone else and that you can't bear to be around but that you can't bear not to be around, if that makes sense?" the older blonde had once tried to explain.
A shudder ran up her spine as she considered what would happen if she lost the protection offered to her by being with Cynthia, no member of Blue Archeology would dare lay a hand on her as long as she was making Cynthia happy but if she botched it and ruined the relationship that she shared she would be free game. Fresh meat for anyone who got a hold of her and she prayed that it was Erin. Erin Lynch Kirkland Braddock was the rawest human that she had ever come into contact with and if she fell into Erin's hands for her punishment she would be dealt a swift and merciful death after willingly giving all the information she had after the threat of being given to Jayr of Sundown as a pet.
If she was supremely unlucky and either Jayr or Sundown got a hold of her she would be begging anyone and everyone for death. They would torture her and enjoy it, even if she willingly told them all she knew they wouldn't care. In their minds she was a traitor, and she was, and that meant that by their law she was susceptible to a punishment which the betrayed decided upon. A shudder passed up her skin as she remembered the hushed whisper of her homeland, the place where one of the Void Colonies were located, rumors that they kidnapped girls and raped them, made them pregnant with their children over and over again until they could no longer bear children. When they could no longer have children they were eaten slowly limb by limb until there was nothing left.
And if Sundown took her to Winter…
Winter...
Her stomach heaved violently the spasm rippling through her body and threatening to loosen her bladder, bile rose in her throat a symptom of pure animal panic that blistered through her mind like an icy wind freezing her limbs to the spot. Winter was anyone's perfect nightmare come to life, the Conquest Icon of the Damned, the ruler of The Deep and uncontested mistress of The Under. If she was brought before Winter then she would tell anything that the woman wanted and admit to crimes she did not commit just to get away from the Black Master, hopefully she would please the master and be rewarded with a relatively less cruel death. If she wasn't then she was to be smuggled into the lawless country of Orre, hidden in places in The Under that were deeper than The Deep and shown the true horror of the Void.
The Black Master was the only accurate name for the demon girl who had been born Rachel Schuyler Sullivan in The Under twenty-six years ago. From an early age she displayed split personalities and an affinity for the Void and everything that it entitled, Dark types flocked to her from far and wide all coming to heel before their mutually accepted master. Dark Types were violent and malicious things that took a strong will to tame, to tame them without having spent any time with them made the threat even more real, the unconceivable power that rolled through her veins thick and slow like the blood of sleeping giants even more terrible. By the age of six the already sadistic girl was taken in by the mysterious benefactor of the Void Colony in Mauville and trained to control the primal sensory power that came with those who were "of the Void", removed from her homeland it seemed as if the connection with whatever was the fuel for their power she spiraled down into blackness. She was the dark equivalent of Caitlin, born with an extraordinary amount of power to draw upon and an aptitude for it, and trained and drilled like Sabrina until it was second nature.
Winter would take her sweetly, lovingly into the dark and she would welcome it... she would beg for the end of it all and the final release that would accompany and even facilitate her death.
No!
Winter was not a creature to be messed by the likes of her, not even the Boss would dare to cross the path of such a beast yet and then he would be lucky to escape. He was a sadist and maybe enough of a sadist to match Winter taste for taste but he was not a masochist and could never serve as a bottom, he would never break Winter even if he tried for centuries. She was starting to understand just why the woman was given the second name with which a strong and undeniable meaning, she was a thing born of absolute cold and absolute unfeeling… Winter was the season of death the emptiness that all returned to whether they wanted to or not.
Unless you had a death wish you wouldn't dare face Winter with your bare hands and nothing at your back but the promise of the spring months battering away the grip of death's fingers. There was only one reason you would willingly take such a course of action, such a path to your demise, you wanted to know what it felt like to endure such a pleasurable torment to know what ecstasy that the dark held and so dearly and secretly. A gamble you were willing to make with the concept of absolute nothingness itself, the odds were not in your favor if you chose death by evil.
In her head Dawn couldn't bring herself to blame Winter for it, you cannot blame evil for being evil. She shook off the dark feeling and sat back on her heels without a word and turned back to turn her attention.
-ooo-
The warrior was beginning the methodical slaughter of the gyms again, the action as familiar and boring as an exercise routine that you practiced and a route you ran every day of the week for the past year. It was just something that you did apathetically and more because you felt obligated to than any other reason; you garnered no joy from it and did it because it had to be done if you wanted to feel right about yourself and to feel well. Whether it be about your health or about your natural ability with a sword or your duty to your family. One day she would waltz through the door and demand a battle with the gym leader for an official league badge and the next day she would be walking into the gym the next town over making the same demands of the next fool on the list. The Champion that could never be Champion walked with an air of superiority that had been hard earned through hours and hours of grueling training, going places and doing things that no one could imagine and many did not have the mental fortitude to do the same. The impossible route that she had taken to the top; to be best of the best had led her to the place where she was meant to be.
Being the Greatest that Ever Lived, a title that the League had given her and not one that she claimed herself put her in a very unique position. The chance to display an aptitude that many did not know that she possessed, the aptitude to teach.
Leaving home the day after the Autumn Equinox festivities ended she had laid claim to a badge from every gym in Unova conquering Drayden with a might blow that would go down in the record books as the hardest anyone had ever hit their grandfather. He had given her a deep scowl of approval and handed over a Legend Badge only because the rules dictated that she was given something in compensation for the work that had been done to defeat the Gym Leader.
The next day she had taken down Brycen and stood in an ankle deep puddle of water giving tips on how to handle fire types with ice types while offhandedly accepting the Freeze Badge. Two days after she was talking to Skyla about how boosting your speed will help you outstrip the electricity that clipped birds wings while pocketing yet another Jet Badge. Clay had sheepishly admitted that he had gotten overconfident and knew his mistake while all but pushing the Quake Badge into her fingers. Elesa three days after had been stunned into silence while she explained that the problem with electric types was that their accuracy sucks and graciously accepted the Bolt Badge to help mend the feelings of the young woman. Burgh had all but given her the Insect Badge late that afternoon while excitedly showing her his newest collection of pictures happy that the battle was over, he already knew that if he was more serious then he would be a better trainer. She'd spent a week with Lenora after winning the Basic Badge sharing her findings with the fellow member of Blue Archeology as well as offering some moveset tips to the taller woman. And finally spent she spent two days beating some sense into Cress, Cilan and Chili after all but raping them taking down all three within a matter of five minutes and earning the Trio Badge, the first badge of a region is supposed to be easier than the last but you're not supposed to all but give them away.
Earning the Beacon Badge from Volkner, the Icicle Badge from Candice, the Mine Badge from Bryon, the Relic Badge from Fantina, the Fen Badge from Crasher Wake, the Cobble Badge from Maylene, the Forest Badge from Gardenia, the Coal Badge from Roark in Sinnoh had taken her longer they were a lot strong opponents who took their job seriously. They took constructive criticism and had showed genuine enthusiasm and joy when she had arrived from the nearby Unova Region to share her experience with both professionals and rookies just starting out alike.
She had reached Hoenn in the mid-Winter and tore through the efforts of Wallace, Tate and Liza, Winona, Normal, Flannery, Wattson, Brawly and Roxanne with a fierce determination that she had always possessed, paying homage to the trainers of her "native" lands in the only way that any of them would accept. As such the Rain, Mind, father, Balance, Heat, Dynamo, Knuckle, and Stone Badges all but fell into her lap with a lot of playful anger and banter to go with them. In late winter she had gone to the Indigo League and had taken the Jade Star Badge, Spike Shell Badge, Sea Ruby Badge, and Coral Eye Badge with nothing but the strength and trust she had built with each of her partners.
The badges of the connected Kanto and Johto (Earth, Volcano, Marsh, Soul, Rainbow, Thunder, Cascade, Boulder, Zypher, Hive, Plain, Fog, Storm, Mineral, and Glacier) and the lessons came easily, all that was left was the Badge she was going to have to work for, to strain and struggle with until it was in her hands. She chose her path carefully wanting to land here waiting to gain the Rising Badge approaching late spring, it was a tradition that she only ever fought with Clair in late spring… it was before Lance returned home to steal her confidence with his naturally higher place in the Clan.
If she would calm down and not listen to the prick then she wouldn't lose to him ever but… you can say things and then you could show them. The Kirkland Clan was very traditional: the place that your parents held was the only place you could ever be, the place that determined your success in the world. She would break them of that starting with Clair.
With arrogant strides the Champion that would never be Champion and Leader that would forever be Leader left the impression of her boot in the soft earth that made up the long winding trail to the newest construction of the Blackthorn City Gym with a cruel smile on her lips as she remembered the events that had led to the need for a new gym to be constructed, yet again. Between herself and her two cousins the fights got to be intense and the last time she'd shown up her demanding yet another badge for her personal reasons as well as to light a fire in Clair's belly Lance had decided to stick his nose where it wasn't wanted claiming that he could beat them both.
Needless to say the night turned into a three way Battle Royale which only ended after she personally had ordered the fatal blow that ended the life of his Dragonite though through his only arrogance and carelessness as a trainer it was bound to happen sometime. A dragon only fell alone if its partner thought themselves superior to their dragon; a dragon only fell in battle to other dragons that were bound perfectly to their partners accepting one another as equals and that was exactly what she was. Equal to her dragons and no one else in the world, or at least a challenger had yet to arrive that would stand a chance, not even the Ketchum boy though it wasn't for lack of trying.
"Devastatingly powerful", those were the words that were used to describe her in the last match against her grandfather Drake during the last battle she had with the Hoenn League at which time the top trainers and masters had decided that it was best to elevate her status to that of "Grand Master" and leave it at that thus forbidding her to open a gym in a city or to claim Championship over the region because that would be a step down. It was at that time she started periodically travelling the world every two years demanding badges in what some of the less educated called a desperate cry for attention from a person who had left themselves without a challenge or goal having burned out the fire too young, those people had never been inside a gym while she challenged the leader. None of them had been to class while it had been in session.
No one really understood her need to teach except maybe Drake and definitely Drayden and Iris... why she kept the badges that she earns sitting in a shoe box under her bed upon her return home, the badges weren't the least bit important monitoring the progress of the Gym Leaders thus insuring that everyone grew stronger was the key. Some of the people watching also understood the second reason she competed in every tournament only to gracefully bow out in the semi-finals, to show people what a strong bond between a trainer and their Pokémon could do. Not just the might of the combined blood of the dragon master's clan could do. That was why she put up the arrogant act in front of others, the cocky statements and superiority made people look at her acts instead of focusing in on the words that she said, when Erin spoke it was for a purpose and so she had taken to not saying much of anything and even fewer people understood that.
When class was in session she pointed out things with short clipped sentences, speaking in a manner as if she was addressing a class of a thousand students in a lecture hall at the major universities.
Gravel crunched beneath her boots now, loud enough to her the difference in her tread and his, his tread had once climbed this mountain alone after his partner feeling the burning shame of difference in the link between them like nothing else. The hot hatred that she had had for everyone who could live peacefully in the valley unplagued by the nightmares and the horrible things that she saw everywhere, the taste had been metallic and made him want to slaughter them all and he would have but that was not what had been in her true heart of hearts. The people down there did not understand but she had long since stopped blaming them for that, ever since she retreated into herself and into him never to surface again. People had tried to get her to leave that shell once they understood the horrible things that it had done to her but by then it was too late and their efforts were nothing but tapping along her clavicle, painful and annoying and she wanted them to stop and when she couldn't make them stop he did it for her. He was always there and had always been there since the day they were first joined together by fate or by destiny or whatever you chose to call it, they were one and they were all together they were more powerful than any foe and together they could stand upon this earth and sing to the heavens the lamentations of a world that crumbled to pieces around them.
A gentle breeze cut up the side of the mountain fanning out the early summer grasses and the gentle purple flowers that grew in the brush up and down the sides of the rock well over three hundred feet up from the mouth of the Dragon's Den. Something rustled in the grass, something small that found its end in a crunch of unmerciful teeth on bone as he turned his head and long neck to snap up the morsel of soft flesh as if it were a fly that a human would bat at. It had been curious about him and why he was so small, so lean compared other dragons that inhabited the mountain side and the foothills below hunting in the low country instead of among the spires as the graceful ribbons of blue death did. Whatever it was died before it could scream and was in his belly before the low rumbling issued up from his chest, she felt it in her chest and inner ears turning around to him casually even as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and her senses kicked into high alert.
She looked dead into piercing blue eyes and he looked every bit the monster that other peoples in other places thought that he was, he looked evil although if the varnish of his scale was black instead of blue he would've looked every bit the death he promised to her enemies and anything he deemed to be food. The covering of undiluted pure sea blue scales that shone in the noon sun covered most of his body in an almost chain mail of smooth scales, the chain mail covered most of his body trailing down into thick barbs on the end of a blue tail. His belly was covered in thick white bands of scale hard enough to protect his delicate insides and most importantly air bladders from being pierced even by a vicious attack from a male Garchomp, something they had both found out in one hard stopping moment back when they were still young and therefore ignorant to the ways of the world as they were not now. His wings flared at his side, the red half scale/ half leather/ half something she had no name for material stretched between the taunt framing bones of his wings but also covered his throat, the skin between his limbs and body, the underside of his tail and sat in eyebrow like patches above each of those glowing eyes. Those markings drew attention outwards to the three spikes that jutted from either side of his head already the almost black/blue that females of his species looked for when in heat.
His small size had ruled him out for most of the mating flights but the battles were still intense yet he bore no scar from such events, the muscles beneath the scales bulged and rippled, coiling tighter and tighter as he opened that red mouth and hissed at her. A trail of thick blue smoke wafted from his maw as a forked tongue flicked over serrated teeth long as her hand and numerous to make any shark envious. The gravel gave a moaning sound as the meat beneath his skin lining his legs tightened even further dragging thick six inch long claws into the earth, his wings extended slowly from his body in a gesture of challenge revealing all thirty eight feet of his impressive wingspan and the only modifications she'd made to the body of the young male runt of his clutch, the young male that should've died to many times over and yet still survived. Beneath each of his wings she'd etched a rune, a delicate swirling pattern that knotted in on itself without ever touching around a single black dot, in a special paint. In times of war she would etch more carefully onto his body but this were times of peace or at least they had been until just a moment ago, he leaned his entire body downwards, crouching low enough that his shoulders were beneath hers though they normally towered inches over her head, his lean body shivered with anticipation as his neck extended ramrod straight eyes focused on something that she could not see.
Before the roar accompanied by the jet of brilliant cerulean fire erupted from his throat she was in motion, one hand on the far right side of his stiff neck to assist her in guiding her onto his back in the space between the jut of his now flared wings and the juncture of his neck and body where the plate like structures that protected his surprisingly sensitive and flexible spine from harm. He was in the air climbing higher with each powerful stroke of his wings before the heat of his flame could even grace his partner's face, winging into the cloud cover faster than should've been possible for a dragon of his breed but he was the runt, the slender runt that wasn't further around the middle than a Rapidash with wings that had grown to full expected size of males of his species. He could fly circles around any competition and he proved that now, rolling so that his back and therefore her back was facing the sun making himself a harder target to see as well as giving her the opportunity to scout out the black dots that were now trying to catch up with the impressive climb.
The wind ripped at her clothes as he tore open the doors that separated her mind from his, the threads of their bond exploding into vivid life as the sensory bombardment began, him climbing ever high all the time. The young male put on another burst of speed pulling further ahead of his opponents, a trumpet of his roar echoing off the ancient stones as his mind calmly but urgently demanded a pale of action from her and now. Their bond was one made by the Great Bonded Heroes of old, crafted specifically so the most unusual and unlikeliest of dragons was paired with the best human for him the cold calculative mind coming in contact with the cunning that pooled between them. She and He could out think any opponent as well as out fly them and with her astride his neck with no space between her slender fingers and his the relay time was instantaneous between the two of them.
His body and her body, his mind and her mind so closely bonded together that it was impossible to tell where one's physical-self began and the other ended. The bond was an overwhelming thing that had taken years to master as it had for every Dragon Master that had made the commitment to bond with another.
He felt his claws, her hands moving now, moving to the sword that was strapped to her back beneath the pack as well as the strong fluent motions of his wings, his own forelimbs tucked tightly against his belly the thick armor plating there a first line of defense against the belly blow. She felt her body soaring and the weight of her own body against her shoulders and knew it to be what he was feeling as she felt the muscles, muscles she did not possess, preparing itself for the swift maneuver that would dislodge any unwanted rider from their body. His neck craned back as she lay her upper body tight against the straining scale, his wings stopped mid motion tucking tightly to his body and they pin wheeled. His enormous body still rushing upwards flew at an arc around his neck and shoulders, she rode the motion with her hips and thighs relaxing as his body drew up parallel to the earth back facing the ground before the rest of his bulk followed the motion of his head and his wings snapped back into motion. Now they were plummeting down, falling faster and faster urged on by his wings at a dead dive perpendicular with the ground and their start off point hurtling faster than their three opponents could react to directly down at them.
The wind howled and the blade whistled sharply through the air as the bird thing and its rider screamed, burning in the gout of flame that erupted from his mouth, their mouth. The second bird creature was caught between four fingered talons crushing the man's skull and ripping bloody tunnels into the bird's wings, it's hollow bones snapping against their palms, his palms. All the while as the blade sliced through another wing and the man's leg, the sharpness cutting through flesh like butter even as he leaned down and took a bite out of his now dead prize and the taste of blood filled their mouth. His mouth.
They did not need to watch the man to know that he was done; they could see his leg and his blood as well as a large portion of his mount's wing falling through the air, passed it even as they hurtled like a comet to the ground. Just four hundred feet away he dropped his prize and they watched longingly as it fell onto the ground even as their wings snapped out to stop their fall so abruptly that it jolted her teeth, their teeth, more than their hard landing on the ground. He lowered his head to his meal, their meal, and began to fill his belly as she rubbed his neck watching the place where the men had come at her from. They had made a mistake coming here and maybe she'd made a mistake killing all of them, there was no one to question but they knew that the men would be back.
It seemed as if old enemies were arising, she watched as He consumed the man and took note of the rune tattooed on his throat just beneath his jaw before the bone disappeared in His mouth with a crunching, grinding snapping sound. Old enemies or maybe new ones, it didn't matter, anyone who bore that symbol someone who had to be destroyed for the sake of the continuing lines of the sons Lynch, Kirkland, and Braddock.