"I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool ya
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah"
"Hallelujah" from Grace by Jeff Buckley
Ithos blew one last plume of flame into the remaining void shadow right as it leapt for Max. It evaporated in the blast, but he still grabbed hold of her to yank her out of the attack path. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking her over.
"Yes, love," Max chuckled. She hopped up to plant a kiss on his snout, escaping his examinations and flushing his cheeks red.
"W-well, uh," Ithos stammered. For the stunt he'd pulled earlier, he was awfully easy to fluster. He scratched at the back of his neck, looking around before settling on the dormant puddle that used to be a void shadow. "What did you say these things are, again?"
"Void shadows," Max said. She looked around, hoping to see any sights that might jog her memory but came up short.
"Right, that's what they're called," Ithos said. "But, like, what are they?" Max froze for a second until he glanced over, and she hoped he didn't catch her hesitation.
"I don't know," Max said. She shrugged and looked at the puddle herself. "I don't think we ever figured that out."
"Thaaaat's a lieeeeee," Ithos sang. Max's ears and tail flopped down in frustration while he looked down at her with the grin that would haunt her nightmares. After getting her to admit to the Big Lie, he'd grown a lot more ornery about every little fib that came up. This time, he felt so bold as to rest an elbow on the top of her head (which he was barely even tall enough to do). "Soo? What are they, my lovely spark?"
"Pi-ka!" Max shouted, smacking his arm off her. She tried so desperately to glare at him, but his chuckling smile mercilessly doused the ember of her anger. Her paws came up to rub her face while she tried to think of how to answer. This was less a secret she didn't want him to know and more a somewhat existential terror he didn't need to have. "Look, I really don't think you want to know."
That did little to change Ithos' expression. In fact, it seemed to embolden him to smirk wider. Max shook her head with a sigh and gave up. "Souls," she said, crossing her arms. "If you're miserable enough when you die, you're stuck here until you forget everything about yourself and become a formless blob."
Ithos froze in place, and Max reveled in watching his little smirk slide off. "O-oh," he said. His brow furrowed as he glanced back at the void shadow he'd turned to a puddle. "But, that's just if you die, right?"
Max flinched, and he looked at her before she could recover. "I'm trying not to think about it, okay?" she mumbled. Especially considering her last conversation with Eleos, she couldn't help feeling her time was particularly limited. She had to be in a better mental state than then, but she couldn't shake the worry.
Warm scales wrapped their way around her and held her tight. Her arms found their place around him on their own. "I've got you, okay?" Ithos said. Her breath started to level out on its own. "I've got you."
Max squeezed him tight enough that some air hissed out of his lungs under the force. It felt too good to correct, though. "Thank you," she whispered.
"Yep," Ithos wheezed. Max relaxed her hold just enough to let him breathe easier, but didn't move to leave the embrace quite yet. The Voidlands didn't have any particular temperature, but that didn't detract from the soft comfort of his warmth. She rubbed her paw into his scales, feeling all along his back. Her claws traced the subtle outlines of muscle while she kneaded her pads in to feel him more.
Max closed her eyes to better focus on feeling along his scales while a dreamy grin pulled across her lips. "Piiii ka," she purred in mindless bliss. Ithos started to squirm a bit, but that only made it more enticing. She felt them ripple with one paw while the other drifted to feel the slight extra padding along his hips.
"M-Max, uh," Ithos mumbled, finally shocking Max out of herself.
"S-sorry!" Max squeaked. She started to scurry out of his hold, but he squeezed her tighter with a chuckle. She pressed her paws flat against his back to resist the urge to grope him further.
"It's all right, girl," Ithos cooed. A wiggle went down Max's spine. She'd gotten more used to it, obviously, but that little bit of extra emphasis he'd use when he called her a girl made her want to wiggle like the first day she'd started hormone replacement. Ithos gave her a little pat and started to release the hug. As they pulled apart, his paw drifted down to give a little squeeze to the subtle shift from her hips to her ass.
Max squeaked a bit, her ears shooting up with her tail, and they traded smirks. "Maybe after we get out of here, okay?" she asked with an extra sprinkling of bite to her words. She did wonder how that might work in the Voidlands, but she refused to let herself linger on it.
"Of course," Ithos whispered. Taking hold of her shoulders, he drifted down to plant a kiss on her lips. Just when she started to reciprocate, he pulled away.
"Tease," Max growled. She rolled her eyes and shook his paws off, though one paw lingered a bit. She didn't mind until she started to turn around, and the paw slid down her back and just a bit below her tail. "Hey!" She hopped around to slap his paw away, but he'd already pulled it up in surrender, looking up and away with the least convincing innocence possible. She just rolled her eyes and turned to hide her smirk.
Truth be told, she didn't mind. For as long as she had to sate herself with glances while he was distracted, touching him was a dream come true. Having him reciprocate with his own paws was pretty close to heaven.
"Remember how to get out, yet?" Ithos asked.
"Not really," Max sighed. The aimless wandering had done nothing to help the memories return. All it accomplished was making them both tired and hungry. They made it so far by scavenging what little they found along the way. It was odd finding any food in the area, but she hoped it would be enough.
"Is wandering around really helping?" Ithos asked as they squeezed out into a slightly wider passageway. While Max looked around them, his right paw snuck into her left with a light squeeze. He had a point, but she just shrugged. "It feels like all we're doing is finding more void shadows to fight like this."
"Yeah," Max mumbled. They'd been walking for a while, too. She was too used to being exhausted to notice when she was tired this early, so it helped to have him there to enforce breaks before she collapsed. "Let's rest up after we get out of this tunnel." Ithos nodded, and they went on. Like she'd expected, the next turn led to an open field of a room.
Like she hadn't expected, though, it had occupants. Not void shadows, no, she would never be that lucky. Instead, the sight of Moltres, Articuno, and Ho-oh greeted them. Max jumped behind Ithos with an embarrassing squeak, and Ho-oh raised a wing.
"Be at peace," Ho-oh declared. "We mean you no-"
Zapdos dove in from the side and ripped them away from each other to hold in each talon, screeching, "YOU!"
"ZAPDOS!" Ho-oh roared. "Mother of the Sea, use your eyes!"
"I am!" Zapdos said. Max kicked and shook as hard as she could in her talons in terror and got a harsh squeeze for her efforts. "These two fought to seal me away!"
"N-No!" Max shouted, then whimpered. They couldn't understand her, but Zapdos pressed her harder into the ground for her efforts. Max felt talons digging into her back with every thrashing attempt to break free, but she couldn't help it. She was too terrified to stop but too weak to break free. Instincts demanded she fight harder to free herself, and she couldn't resist their cries.
A clawed foot slammed into the ground on either side of Zapdos, and she froze. Ho-oh stood over her with detached frustration in her eyes strong enough to make the tinier legendary tremble, but Zapdos didn't release them. Despite being there to help, Max could only see her as a bigger, angrier predator.
"Zapdos," Ho-oh said, her voice a silken dagger. "If they are agents of Dark Matter, what good are they petrified?" She stared down at the smaller bird until Zapdos finally let them go.
Max darted out of her hold the instant her grip loosened, scurrying along the nearest wall to curl up against the first corner she found while babbling for mercy. She couldn't see, but she was too terrified to look. Her instincts blared in her mind at a constant scream while she struggled to slow her breath at all. When Ithos gently tried to get her attention with a tap, she leapt onto him and buried her face in his chest.
He tottered once before falling back and wrapped his arms around her. "It's okay, it's okay," he whispered. His claws gently scritched down her back and quieted the majority of her squeaks of terror. While he held her, she wrapped her tail around him to squeeze him tighter.
After he'd calmed her down, Max took a deep breath and sighed, "Piiii ka-chu." Ithos tapped her side three times to let her know she still wasn't speaking English, which she already knew, but she appreciated his help. She squeezed her arms around him until she could swear she heard his rib-cage creaking and relaxed. "Thank you." She unconsciously rubbed her cheek into his chest.
"Forgive my friend," Ho-oh s-
Max screamed and started to scramble away, but Ithos held her tight, cooing, "Hey, hey! It's okay, it's okay." Max barely obliged but shrank into him to hide. As he continued to run his paws down her back, she peeked one eye over his shoulder.
Ho-oh landed a generous few yards away with an apologetic smile. Max felt a bit guilty being so scared of her and tried that much harder to get over her instincts. "S-Sorry," Max said. Three more taps came to her side, courtesy of Ithos, and she crumpled in his comforting embrace. After taking another moment, she started wriggling out to sit next to him (still tightly clutching his arm).
"She says she's sorry," Ithos said as he shimmied around to face Ho-oh. "Her instincts are a bit stronger than most pokémon's." He brought his paw over to stroke the fur of the arms with a death grip around his. Max struggled to even glance up at Ho-oh, seeing a thoughtful head tilt when she did.
"Is that so?" Ho-oh asked. "Strange." She squinted one eye in thought until she caught herself staring and shook her head. "Sorry. It's simply been ages since I've heard of such a case."
"Ka?" Max asked. As far as she knew, Dungeon Sickness simply didn't exist yet. She'd never considered that it didn't exist anymore.
Ho-oh nodded in thought, fluffing her feathers beside her, mumbling, "Even down to the speech." Her beak twisted in concern a touch while she glanced Max over again. "It must be due to Dark Matter's meddling." One wing went before her chest while she bowed her head to Max. "I am sorry. It is no easy burden to bear."
"Thank you," Max said. Her grip on Ithos' arm loosened a bit (to his audible relief). She shifted to hold his paw instead, still keeping a fairly tight hold on him. "I thought," it probably wasn't a good idea to say what she actually thought, "…I was the only one."
"Dear, how horrible," Ho-oh said. She brought a wing to her heart. "You must have felt so alone for so long." With a glance to Ithos, she started to smile and looked back at Max. "You're lucky to have so kind a friend by your side." Max watched Ithos resist the urge to puff out his chest with pride and giggled. "Alas," Ho-oh sighed. "What a shame to end up here." A sorrow forced its way into her voice.
"Well, yeah," Max mumbled. She glanced around and found the three Elemental Birds of Legend huddled together with the same defeated eyes Ho-oh tried to hide. "But once we find the exit, it'll be fine."
"Oh, the endless hope of youth," Ho-oh hummed with a sad smile. She watched Max with barely concealed regret. "Never let go, never give in." She chuckled while fluffing her wings to a light shine, then gave a furtive glance to the trio on the other side of the room. "They may be younger, but I've tried to hold onto that youthful hope for them."
Max's mouth twisted down. Ho-oh might have talked Zapdos down, but Max still didn't want to face suspicion for sharing what she knew. It was hard to see Ho-oh's waning veil of cheer vanish, though. With how little she remembered, though, maybe it'd be best to avoid getting their hopes up quite yet.
"Here, have you eaten?" Ho-oh asked. "Supplies are sparse down here, but some odd quirk of this place allows food to grow there." She turned and pointed a wing to an odd structure amidst the countless pillars piercing the sky. Max stared at it intently, its impossible form tickling the back of her mind. Its base looked more like a peak, the rest of it curling around and wider as it ascended.
"Yes, it's an odd structure, isn't it?" Ho-oh said. Max's tail started to wiggle behind her. She knew she'd seen it before. "I've taken to calling it-"
"REVERSE MOUNTAIN!" Max screamed. She shot up in excitement, leaving Ithos to rub at the imminent damage to his hearing. Even Ho-oh flinched back a bit at the outburst. When he saw her eyes, though, Ithos started to look excited, too. "There!" Max jabbed a nubbin at the place, bouncing in excitement. "That's the exit!"
Ithos hopped up and yanked her into his arms, cheering, "You remembered!" They jumped in each other's embrace, and he laughed. "I told you! I told you we'd make it out!" Their next landing, Max jumped extra high to plant a kiss on his lips, holding herself up by his shoulders so he couldn't pull away.
His eyes shot open at the sudden doubling of weight to carry, but he managed to stay standing. After the surprise, he pressed his lips harder against hers. Max started running her tongue along his scales and opened her eyes to look into his. Unfortunately, what she saw cut the action short. Ithos looked about as excited as her, but she suddenly saw a rainbow of plumage approaching.
Oh, and Ho-oh at no point left.
Max dropped out of his hold in an instant while fighting the urge to hide behind him again. Said urge grew significantly stronger when she heard chuckling. "Well, don't let us stop you," said Articuno. Ho-oh gave them a playful glare that didn't seem to dissuade them at all.
"Did you say exit?" Moltres asked. His siblings had stopped about as far away as Ho-oh, but he waltzed right up next to Ithos and Max. He started lowering his head to tilt in front of Max, and her instincts started to torment her until she gave in and went back to cowering behind Ithos. "Whoah, don't worry! I'm not Zaps, got it?"
"Just give her some space," Ithos said, nearly barking the demand. He turned to wrap an arm around her while the other went to run his paw along her back. Moltres seemed a bit taken aback by the response, but did as he asked.
Now that she didn't have a huge flaming bird of prey breathing down her neck, Max could build up enough courage to intermittently peek her eyes up at the total of four massive predators that could swallow her up in one gulp. She opted to hide in Ithos' chest a bit longer. Her tail came around to guard his side as well.
"There there," Ithos cooed. He continued running his paw down her back and turned his head to the others. "She knows the way out-OW!" Max pulsed a light shock right into his scales. She was trying to avoid their attention, but it was too late for that now.
"What?" the three siblings asked in unison. Moltres started coming over again, but Articuno blocked him with a wing.
"You do?" Articuno asked, shaking the heat off their wing. They clearly wanted to ask more, but held themself back, glancing at the pikachu still cowering away from them. "Does she need more space?" Max shrank away a bit in embarrassment and guilt. They were very clearly keeping their voice low and soft for her.
"S-sorry," Max forced out after a moment's focus. She took a deep breath and stepped halfway out from behind Ithos. Her eyes couldn't leave the ground, though.
"Dear, there's no need to apologize," Ho-oh assured with a smile. Max tried to accept the comfort, but it didn't do much for her. She at least managed to glance up with a forced smile. "You're doing quite well with it for someone your age, and there's no rush." Moltres almost complained at that last part, but Ho-oh silenced him with an almost somehow physical glare.
"Age?" Max mumbled. Neb had never mentioned any connection to how old she was. Age felt like a non-sequitur (and focusing on the confusion allowed her to distract herself).
"Of course," Ho-oh said. "I suppose there's less places to keep you now, but I don't remember seeing a feral like you-" Max nearly tried to shock her that instant and barely resisted, "even bother with learning to speak before they were ten." Ho-oh came from a different time, and this was already thousands of years removed from Max's. "You're, what, ten? Eleven?"
"Oh, um, tenleven—sure!" Max hurriedly agreed. Ho-oh tilted her head in confusion at the hesitation while Articuno smirked at Zapdos. Zapdos rolled her eyes, so Articuno turned back to Max with the same smirk.
"Human?" Articuno asked. Max didn't even bother trying to deny it, instead resting her head on Ithos' arm. "Told you." Ithos rubbed at her head for comfort. "Don't worry, Pikachu." Max's ear perked up, and she realized they'd never shared their names. "There's not many pokémon we could tell, but we wouldn't anyway."
"Human," Ho-oh hummed. She brought a wing beneath her beak in thought. "That is… interesting."
"Max," Max said. Ithos gave her a quick questioning glance before his eyes flashed with the same realization. "Or, that's—I'm Max."
"And I'm Ithos," Ithos said. Max wished she'd never brought it up with how bad she flubbed it, but at least Ithos took the lead. "Sorry." He shrugged with a chuckle. "I guess we forgot to introduce ourselves."
"Can't blame you, given the circumstances," Articuno chuckled. They smirked at Zapdos who quickly pecked at their wing.
"Great! Can you tell us how to get out already?" Moltres snapped. He didn't screech, at least, but the bite still made Max flinch. Luckily, Ithos was there to give her a quick pat of reassurance while Ho-oh looked to be slicing Moltres up with invisible laser vision.
"Right, sorry," Max mumbled, stepping the rest of the way out from behind Ithos. Her paw found his on its own while the other pointed up to Reverse Mountain. "It's at the peak." The sight of it alone made her ears and tail flop down in exhaustion. She couldn't remember scaling it, but her body was already dreading it. "That'll be fun to climb," she grumbled.
"Max?" Ithos asked with a smirk. Max raised one ear up at him before slapping her paw to her face. They were quite literally surrounded by birds.
"Can we really just accept what she says as true?" Zapdos asked. Ithos started to say something back when Max squeezed his paw to pull him back. Zapdos wasn't the only one with a skeptical eye, and they had good reason. Despite that, Zapdos still took a breath before looking to both of them more kindly. "Just, how do you know that?"
The attempts at cordiality didn't help Max forget having talons stabbing into her from all sides. She tried to keep herself calm despite it with careful breathing and generous doses of squeezing Ithos' arm again. "I can't really prove it," Max admitted. "I just know."
"Zapdos," Articuno said, holding a wing up to halt Max. "What else can we really do?" Their voice barely had enough air to carry it. They'd likely been there the longest. "And what can it hurt to try?" The rebuttal died in Zapdos' beak when she saw the exhaustion in Articuno's eyes. With a sigh, she shook the nerves out of her wings.
"Might as well," Zapdos said. She looked around the rest of the group, then Ithos and Max. "Should we go, then?" Her eyes honed in on Max with a bit more worry. "I hope you're not too scared to ride me."
"Excuse me?!" Max spat before quickly catching herself. "Oh—you, that." Her cheeks sparked in humiliation, but she was glad she only got glares of bafflement. Better that they didn't know (for her, at least). She glanced to the other three in a desperate attempt to save face and moved on. "Right, because of typing." Moltres' flaming plumage in particular looked especially uninviting.
Ho-oh gave her a nod of consideration before saying, "Yes, unfortunately. It's the least dangerous option for any of us. Paralysis in the air is too large a risk to take, and Zapdos has the least vulnerability to your element."
"What?" Max asked. She leaned a bit more on Ithos while her ears flopped down. "I'm not planning on attacking anyone."
"Oh, dear, I don't mean that you'd do it on purpose," Ho-oh said with a dismissive wave of her wing. "It's simply natural for some of your kind to let out their charge unwittingly." So, it wasn't that they didn't trust her character but her ability to control herself. That only embarrassed her instead of hurt her, which made her cheeks spark, proving Ho-oh's point. Ithos pulled her into a quick hug and kissed her forehead.
Zapdos glanced up at Ho-oh who nodded at the silent question. Zapdos started walking over one careful step at a time with an eye on Max's reaction. Max tried to keep hold of herself, and thanks to having Ithos so close, she actually managed.
Each few steps, Max would start to shake more until Ithos gave her paw a gentle squeeze. Max didn't even notice her trembles until he stopped them for her. Zapdos had made it halfway when Ithos' eyes shot open.
"Wait, we can't!" Ithos said. Everyone looked at him in confusion, so he turned to Max. "Jirachi!" He turned to everyone else in an urgent half-panic. "In the Dungeon, we saw Jirachi petrified, just like you!" Max appreciated him seeming to forget they were also petrified at the moment. "We have to bring them, too!"
The Legendaries shared uneasy glances until Ho-oh reluctantly stepped forward. "This land is vast, Ithos," Ho-oh said. "We've no idea how many pokémon may be scattered through its wastes."
Ithos' mouth fell open in horror. He looked back to Max for support. Even though she had none, she couldn't let herself leave him high and dry. She squeezed his paw for support of her own and forced herself to look at the massive predators.
"You can fly," Max said. She held up a paw and looked up with pleading eyes. "Can't we look, at least?"
"How far," Zapdos started to say, quickly catching herself and lowering her voice a bit more, "Away were they?" With a reluctant sigh, she turned to the others. "We can't save them all, but we can at least save Jirachi, can't we?" Max showed her appreciation by squeezing Ithos' paw until it cracked rather than hide from Zapdos. Staying out front got a lot harder when Zapdos looked at her again.
After a second, she realized Zapdos was waiting for an answer. "Uh, just the one room?" she said. She let go of Ithos' paw to wrap around his arm instead, which technically wasn't hiding behind him. That didn't mean Jirachi was close, but she didn't need to share that information. "They're probably pretty close." Lying probably wasn't necessary, though.
"The risk is too great," Ho-oh said. "The inhabitants of this land are not blind to our flight. We may simply lead a horde to Jirachi's location."
"We can't leave them," Articuno hissed out. Their beak twisted in frustration glancing at Zapdos to grumble, "I hate it when you're right." After another hiss of a deep breath, they looked up to Ho-oh. "If they're bringing us out, we owe it to them."
Ho-oh brought a wing to her eyes in frustrated thought. "To search all together would draw too much attention," she said. Shaking her head, she flopped her wing back down. "I will not ask anyone to risk their life for this. If you wish to search, you may, but our time is limited."
"What, so I'm just supposed to wait?" Moltres grumbled. With a groan, he shook his head. "All right, fine." Glaring at Ithos, he turned to lower his wing. "Let's get this over with." Ithos started over with a nod, but Max yanked him back.
"W-wait, but!" Max stammered. Her gaze shot across the legendaries, and she could feel her eyes growing dim. She didn't know if she could let go of Ithos. With a glance, though, it was obvious that Zapdos couldn't carry them both. The electricity would probably make it horrible for Ithos, too.
"It'll be all right," Ithos cooed. He pulled her into a hug with the arm she wasn't strangling and ran his paw down her back. "You'll be okay." Max winced, but found herself leaning into his touch. He released the hug and started walking her over to Zapdos. Max froze on the spot until Ithos started soothing her worries some more. He led her forward, step by step, a sweet owner leading his stupid puppy to meet a new friend.
Before she knew it, she felt feathers tickling her fur. She held him tighter, and he kept soothing her. If it wasn't so horrifying, she'd be humiliated. Luckily, she felt she'd die any second now.
Ithos peeled her off him, nubbin by nubbin, all while keeping himself close and ready, making sure she could always feel him. She realized she still hadn't opened her eyes and let them stay closed. Once he'd freed it, he brought her paw to touch Zapdos' feathers.
The plush static of the down ever so slightly tickled. Electricity tingling through her paw felt soothing when it wasn't the violent strike of an attack. Her instincts pulled her closer to the source before she could recognize it and ran her paw down the feathers to build a slightly greater charge around it. She quickly had enough energy to force her tail to flick behind her.
Max peeked one eye open to see Ithos had let go of her paw. The instant she noticed, though, she felt his paw at her back… a bit low—was now really the time? Still, his touch remained warm enough to soothe her (and she couldn't in all honesty say she resented him for taking the chance).
"Ready?" Ithos asked. Max glanced to him with a tremble. His beaming smile made it hard to cower away, though.
"No," Max mumbled. After one last breath, she reeled back to hop up onto Zapdos' back. Zapdos squawked when she landed, and hearing Ithos chuckle made Max's cheeks spark a bit.
"A big girl, aren't you?" Zapdos chuckled. She quickly straightened her stance, though, not having much trouble adjusting after the initial surprise.
"Ohh, yes she is," Ithos sang. Max growled down at him while burying herself into the pleasant static of Zapdos' feathers. The sensation was nice while the feathers let her pretend no one else could see her. Her fur was pretty close in color, actually. If it weren't for the brown stripes, she'd blend in quite well by just hiding her cheeks.
"What are you doing now?" Moltres grumbled. Max perked up to see Ithos next to a wall with a spike in one paw.
"Instructions," Ithos said. As he dragged the spike against it, the wall started looking more and more familiar. "So anyone else who comes here knows how to get out, too." He started putting down meaningless symbols that Max instantly recognized. It wasn't English, but a script nonetheless.
Max wanted to protest for the sake of time's safety before realizing it needed to be there. After all, she only knew how to get out because Ithos told her what that said. "Huh," she chuckled. "Operation Bootstrap." Zapdos tilted her head up at her to raise a brow, but Max shook her head. At least now, she knew how he'd be able to read thousand year old runes.
"Kid, where in Arceus' Legends did you learn to write?" Moltres asked. Ithos had gotten a full line of glorified shapes that did not remotely resemble anything close to a letter.
Despite that, he rolled his eyes as he looked back at Moltres like it was obvious. "It's not like we can just put it in plain English," Ithos explained. Shaking his head, he turned back to continue. "There's no way Fara would let it stay if she knew what it was. She'll probably ignore it, but it's the first cipher anyone would learn. Everyone knows it." Everyone else shared glances to confirm that he was the only one who knew it.
Well, except for Max. Not to say she understood it (it was gibberish to her, too), but she was too infatuated with his blind passion to participate. He was so lost in his own hobby of a world that he couldn't comprehend a single other soul didn't know what he was talking about. It made her shiver with want.
"Jesus Christ, I need to taste him," Max whispered. Zapdos stifled a squawk of surprise to a chuckling cough, and Max threw a paw to her mouth. She really hadn't wanted to say that out loud.
"'S-'Scuse me," Zapdos forced out. She held a wing to her chest and masked her laughter with fake coughs. "Must be something in the air." She craned her neck back to glance at Max with naked amusement before shaking her head forward and continuing the charade. Every other bird stared at Zapdos instead of her, but Max still buried her sparking cheeks in Zapdos' feathers.
Max shuffled forward to squeak out, "Thanks," quiet enough that only Zapdos could hear. Zapdos gave a covert nod, looking back to wink at her.
This was not how she'd expected meeting legendaries to go. Or wanted it to go. She hadn't even had nightmares to prepare her for this kind of horror. At least Zapdos was laughing at her instead of trying to eat her (even if Max would've preferred the latter in that moment).
"Hey, Max?" Ithos asked. He stepped back a bit from his work, tapping his writing rock against his chin. "What did you say Fara was, again?"
"Dark Matter," Max said, barely letting his question finish. She was beyond eager to move on from the moment. "It's basically the sentient form of every negative feeling we leave to fester." In her eagerness to move on from her embarrassment, she accidentally got everyone to turn and stare at her while Ithos got to writing. "Wh-what?" she squeaked.
"Even I didn't know that," Ho-oh said. After a moment, though, she let her surprise go and started preening her feathers. "Good to know they sent a human that knows anything, this time." Max let out a breath of relief. She didn't even need to make up an excuse this time.
"All right!" Ithos cheered. He stepped back to put his paws at his hips, standing proud before his work. He looked to Max with a proud grin that made her deeply interested in the inner workings of the anatomy below his waist. "How's it look?" In lieu of speech, she flicked him a thumbs up. It may as well have been chicken scratch to her, but he clearly understood it.
"Great!" Ithos said, pointing his writing rock to the sky instead of his badge. "Let's find Jirachi!" He tossed his sacred writing utensil to the side and ran over to Moltres. With a single bound, he saddled his legs on his back and clutched onto his feathers for dear life while the legendary bird bucked. "HEEEEEYAW!"
Max laughed so hard that Zapdos had to tilt side to side to keep her from falling off. She'd taught him that one. He didn't even say it right, but he had the perfect spirit.
"I'LL WRING YOUR NECK," Moltres screeched. Unfortunately for him, he suffered the fate of everyone else finding it too funny to let him enact his own revenge. Max might've given him an apologetic smile if not still so entrenched in her laughter. A harsh gust of wind nearly blasted Max off Zapdos, and Moltres disappeared into the sky.
Ho-oh looked up and primed herself to catch a plummeting Ithos, but he apparently held tight enough (likely, to Moltres' great displeasure). She relaxed, fluffing her wings while she laughed, "You two are enough entertainment for a century." Max chuckled in thanks, still too beside herself with laughter to get a hold on Zapdos.
"All right, Max, c'mon," Zapdos chuckled. She shook Max a bit to get her to grab on. "I'll be more gentle than that, but I still need you to hold tight."
"Gotcha," Max said. Regretfully, she considered asking if she should keep all limbs inside the cabin and immediately felt disdain for herself. It was such a contrived joke, she was glad she'd resisted the urge. Luckily, her thoughts were hers and hers alone, so no one else could ever know.
And it's not like you can tell her I told you, so where's the harm?
"All right," Zapdos said. She primed her wings a few times and squat down a bit. "Three, two, one!" With a rush of wind battering her ears and tail like windsocks, Max took to the skies on Zapdos' back. It felt familiar to how she'd landed, and she was very glad to have a ride this time. Particularly once Zapdos leveled out in the sky and started to glide. "All right, let me know if you see them."
Max nodded, though she doubted she'd a better chance. She struggled to make out Moltres off in the distance. He was a bit more smooth in his flight than before, but not by much. As he continued, though, he seemed to give up on throwing Ithos off.
Articuno flew up behind, and despite her misgivings, even Ho-oh took to the skies behind them. They all picked their own 'cardinal direction' and searched in it. The Voidlands didn't have any such magnetism, though, so they made their own compass rose. Once she noticed it, Max realized it was odd to not feel North.
"Ohhh, I'll miss this for a bit," Zapdos said. She glanced back at Max to ask, "Holding up all right?" Max nodded. It only took her a second to guess why Zapdos would have to abstain from flight for a while thanks to a timely flap of her left wing.
"Right, your wing," Max said. With a groan, she brought a paw to her chest. "Kaachu. I'm not gonna have a good time waking up, either." Zapdos looked back curiously with an apologetic look. She must not have felt the rib snapping under her weight. "One of the ribs on my right sends its regards."
"Forward those regards to your friend, why don't you?" Zapdos said, looking to the ground again.
Max rolled her eyes and turned to the horizon. She couldn't help look, but sightseeing couldn't hurt. These Voidlands were much darker than those she remembered. The hues stayed in the same range, but a dark ash tainted every single one. She'd remembered the lavender sand beneath her paws acting as some semblance of a path with the burning crimson sky, but all of that was gone.
Clouds of smokey indigo hid whatever shade the sky had. Despite flying, she didn't feel any closer to the clouds above. For how far away they had to be, their movements, crashing in on themselves must have been massive. She thought she could hear the faint booms of their conflicts, but that could've been her imagination.
The only light, she realized, came from the constant crimson flickering of lightning above. It cut and wove around the clouds like nets, throwing them all into each other in a constant war. The claws sank into the world above, forcing an explosive crash between titans that left no impact. It made her cower into Zapdos' feathers a bit, taking solace in the passive charge surrounding her, but she didn't know why.
This conflict had no one to die in it, yet consumed the world above. It was senseless violence without the decency to even leave a massacre behind. Turmoil filled the world above. Watching it, she felt herself pulled into a war she had no chance to understand, yet had to kill for nonetheless.
"Are you shaking back there?" Zapdos asked. Her eyes were still scanning the ground. Max shook herself out of her fear and pulled her eyes away. Maybe sightseeing could hurt. She stopped her shaking, but Zapdos still glanced back at her. "Hey, if you're getting scared, we can land. I don't get the instincts thing, but you won't hurt my feelings."
"Not that," Max said, shaking her head. "Just thinking." Zapdos didn't look convinced, but looked back down anyway.
Eleos had formed its own Voidlands into a beautiful landscape the last time she'd seen them. It felt wrong to call them Voidlands, looking to be celebrations of creation, somehow. Had Fara made these, or did they form independent of her input? Max felt another shiver hit her spine when she wondered what sick inner world created this, well, inner world.
"Hey, Max! You see that?" Zapdos asked. Max shook herself out of her head again while Zapdos spiraled down and around, tilting to the side to let Max see the ground better. It was a tight corner to keep Max on with momentum, but they were high enough up that Max could see the spinning ground.
It was a nice thought, but Zapdos seemed to forget about the effects of such momentum on an unprepared stomach. Max heaved out a groan while burying her head into Zapdos' down. Even a slowly spinning world below spun too fast for her. "S-sick," she groaned. She wanted to put a paw to her stomach, but had to keep a tight hold to avoid falling. Mice were not designed for such heights.
"What?" Zapdos asked, Max's voice lost in the turbulence. "I think I saw them go in there. I'll land nearby." Max swallowed her own growing need to vomit in agreement while hardly hearing a word.
Nausea didn't abate when Zapdos dove down. It did, however, make Max consider trying to plummet instead. After all, she survived the first time. Too much of her nerve, however, was busy keeping her stomach out of her throat, so she continued to hold on tight.
The wind's screaming hiss quieted down to nothing until Zapdos firmly smacked into the ground. She extended her wing down to let Max off, and Max gracefully tumbled down to the earth with both paws on her stomach. She didn't try to land any particular way and found herself facing the sky. Now that she was on the ground, though, she was sure her stomach would settle.
"You got air sick?" Zapdos asked. Her head popped above Max, beak mere inches away. Even after hitching a ride on her back, Max still felt her instincts blenching at the sight. "You could've just said so."
"Chuuuu ka kachu," Max grumbled. Feeling the ground beneath her didn't stop her head's spinning at all. She didn't even have a North to orient herself, which made it even more sickening. At least she'd avoided vomiting, but that would've gotten the nausea over with.
"Here, I'll help you up," Zapdos said. Without waiting for an answer, she gently plucked Max up in her beak and set her down. Max wanted to fall right back to the ground, but her tail had already gone to work on keeping her balance. At least the sluggishness of the nausea made her miss that she was literally in Zapdos' beak until she'd already been released.
"Max?" Zapdos asked. Max lazily glanced at her while clutching her stomach. "I need you to check this out. It's too small for me to fit, but I'm sure I saw some yellow thing disappear in there."
Max reluctantly looked over to the mouth of a cave that Zapdos definitely wouldn't fit in. Max might even be too large for it. It barely looked a foot wide around. "All right," Max said. With her tail aiding her balance, a bit of the nausea did finally abate, but not much. She started heading for it when Zapdos pulled at the nape of her neck, making her look back in confusion. "Didn't you want me to do this?"
"Just be careful, all right?" Zapdos said. She glanced to the hole and shook her head. "If it's not Jirachi, I don't know what it is. Your friend probably can't come get you, either." She turned to Max. "It'll just be you in there."
"Kaa pika pichu," Max grumbled. "All right." She would've preferred ignoring that detail, but Zapdos was right. "Thanks."
Max nodded up as she dropped to all fours, and Zapdos nodded back as she headed for the opening. All the rocks piled up in the entrance looked intentional and not too stable. The hole wasn't ground level, so Max had to keep a steady paw with an upset stomach while climbing up to it. At least it was a short climb, though her nausea still hated it.
Rocks and pebbles tumbled with every step she took in the climb. A seemingly reliable foothold suddenly slipped out from under her. She immediately recovered by simply holding on tighter with her forepaws, but the leap in her stomach made her wish she'd fallen far enough to fall unconscious.
Unfortunately, fate was not so kind. She made it up the little mound and wriggled through the hole (trying not to hear Zapdos chuckle when her belly got caught halfway through). It took a few pulls, some sucking in, but she managed to just barely make it through. Luckily, the inside had a much more gradual incline. There was no light but the faint glow of the ground around her.
"Hello?" Max called out while her eyes adjusted. "We're friendly, all right?" The entrance seemed empty to her, so she started crawling down the mound to the ground. Rocks and pebbles clicked and clacked as they tumbled down the mound in her climb down.
Her ear flicked up at another sound. It was faint, but she thought she could hear a voice. Once she made it to the ground, she listened closer to find they sounded like whimpers.
"Don't worry," Max said. "We're here to help." Usually, speaking English was enough to convince a rescue she was safe to trust, but the whimpers didn't stop. They only really grew stifled while whoever it was seemed determined to quiet them. Max closed her eyes to listen better and found her awareness already extending out on its own. It couldn't hurt, so she tempered it rather than quenched it.
Staying on four paws made it easier to stay quiet on her way. She felt the tiny cave expand in paths around her while listening for the stifled voice. They were clearly trying to hide, so Max didn't call again. Hopefully, they'd calm down when they saw she wasn't a void shadow.
The cave was small. After a couple turns, she could already tell she'd found the right path. She opened her eyes while still relying more on her awareness in the dark.
The whimpers grew unmistakable as she approached the nearest corner. The fur on the back of her neck started to stand up, some mix of how deep she was, dark it was, and knowing that she was alone aside from this one unknown entity. If it wasn't friendly, she just hoped her stomach had calmed down enough to handle running.
Rounding one more corner, she saw three points with tassels and let out a sigh of relief. It was Jirachi. Halfway out, that breath caught in her throat.
Jirachi stared at her with wide, terrified eyes. He had a hand to his mouth while constantly, slowly shaking his head as if to deny the sight. "No," he whimpered. Max got up to put her paws up while more tears started falling down his face. "You're here." He buried his face in his hands, but Max could still see eyes wide open. "It worked. It's all my fault."