Chapter Text
Tioga woke up choking on their own blood.
Thick and molten, it oozed golden from their lips and pooled on the ground in front of them. Everywhere it touched, the dirt beneath it melted and fused itself into glass until Tioga was looking at a patchwork reflection of themselves, haggard and unkempt and bedraggled. Their eyes were feral. Their blood glowed gold on their lips, and they ran a tongue along them to pull it back inside. Pleasant, that it reminded them of the taste of honey — but that was the only pleasant thing about the situation they were in.
A bullet thunked itself into the dirt beside them, a millimeter from their head. They stared at it wondrously for a moment. The trim was so golden that it hurt to look at, and the bullet itself was bleach-white. Across it in tiny golden letters was written RKS-001.
Allegheny.
Tioga threw themselves to the side, already anticipating the next shot — which had been smart, because another bullet buried itself right where they had come to consciousness on their hands and knees. They rolled in the dirt, over and over, until they were on their back, their chest heaving, adrenaline flooding every part of their body until their fingers and toes hurt with it and it felt like a swarm of Beedrill was positioned just behind their eyes. Where— where—
There.
Allegheny was perched in one of the many trees surrounding them. In any other situation, this place would have been beautiful. Buttery light sifted itself through the canopy of treetops above them, and the leaves on those trees were so green that it defied description. Everything was so incredibly alive; Tioga could feel not just the living beings but the essence of life itself through the dirt beneath their fingers. It was all so saturated. A shame, then, that they were actively being hunted.
Tioga could only see part of Allegheny — the rest of them was hidden by the enormous sniper rifle they were lining up another shot with. Their white hair mirrored Tioga's in length, spilling down their shoulders and their back; it was normally pulled into a ponytail so it didn't get in the way, or at least it had been the few times Tioga had had the misfortune to cross paths with them, but Tioga could tell without spending much time thinking about it that wherever they were was some subset of Arceus's domain. It was very likely that Allegheny could shoot that sniper rifle with their eyes closed and hit their target.
There were many, many questions zipping through Tioga's mind at a million miles an hour, but chief among them was the one that every single one branched from, and they said it now, desperately, on the verge of insanity with it:
"Where's Volo?!"
Of course they didn't think Allegheny would actually tell them. They were clearly invested in the hunt, and if they told Tioga where they had stashed Volo, they certainly must have known that Tioga would abandon any semblance of participating in their little game to go off and find him. But the question leapt practically unbidden from their lips; they could not have gone even one more second without asking it, regardless of if they were going to be getting an answer.
In response, Allegheny lined up another shot, calm and quiet and breathing in time with the life force everywhere around them. It took them only a second this time to be sure of their shot, and a crack sounded through the air as they released it.
Tioga disappeared — tendrils of shadow wrapped around them and pulled them into the ground a split second before the bullet would have hit them. Their inherent speed as a Pokemon and as a creature of shadow was the only reason they avoided the shot at all; if they had been human, with this fatigued countenance they now exhibited, they would without a doubt have found themselves bleeding out into the dirt — well, bleeding out into the dirt again. In all honesty, they were surprised Shadow Sneak had worked at all. In this place so full of light, they were half-expecting their shadow not to take. But as they slipped into the ground and then into the connecting part of the Shattered World that they inhabited when they were performing this move, they closed their eyes and took a few seconds to breathe deeply, in this isolated place of darkness. How very calming it was to be wrapped in shadow and murk and tenebrosity. They were sure most people found their comfort in the warmth of Arceus's light — but it had never been something that had been able to reach them.
They brought their hands up to their chest, one over the other. Beneath their palms, their heart tripped itself down from a frantic, frenzied rhythm to a soft, measured one, and only became more so the longer they remained in this liminal space.
Their eyes fluttering closed, they whispered into the aether, I'm coming to get you, Volo. I promised I'd always come collect you. Just give me a little time to find out where you are.
And then they were being pulled up through the blackness that surrounded them.