I Want To Lay the Very Best!

266 – From a Deep Place

"Look at her," Morgan said with a soft, wistful sigh. "I love it when she's motivated."

She was just staring at Brandy's butt as she tried to peer through the darkness, but Brandy could forgive her for the distraction. She even gave Morgan a little shake of it as she tried to pick anything out of the ordinary in the murky darkness surrounding their little raft.

"I love it when she's motivated," Sparky said, sliding an arm around Morgan's waist. Fighting her off was impossible; she had four arms to Morgan's two wing arms, which got Morgan's feathers ruffled even trying. "I love her when she's sleepy. I love her when she's stuffing her face. Calcine, did you know Morgan loves Brandy?"

"I don't sound like that!" Morgan squawked. "I was staring at butts. They bring out strong emotions in me, that's all."

Calcine tried not to laugh; her lips bit together into a thin line. "I'm glad you see the good in her that we do," she said diplomatically. "I've been wanting to spend more time with you."

"Oooh," Sparky purred, "Calcine and Morgan date. Now, that'd be an exciting night. You prepared to have your body remade by Carkol dick Morgan?"

Morgan escaped Sparky's grip with a burst of black feathers, but Sparky was ready as she reappeared, two arms held forward, firing out twin streams of electrified webs. Morgan just about dodged them by breaking apart into black feathers again and tried to find a spot to reappear where Sparky couldn’t shoot at her.

"Come on, Morgan, come hug the team! Tell us how much you love Brandy!"

Brandy looked back to see if she needed to break it up, but Morgan grinned like an idiot as she used Calcine and their hastily thrown-together sail as a shield. Sparky's evolution to a Galvantula made sense, leaving her full of energy. Still, it was impressive just how energetic Morgan was, too. The Carvanah twins hadn't been much of a challenge for her and Calcine to handle alone. They'd all come so far so fast; her team was strong now, really strong, and the three-badge level Water gym was turning out to be a bit too easy. Even if it had tried to embarrass her to death with her old, cheesy fanfics.

Blahaj had stopped reading them, at least. It seemed Brandy's overcoming of her shame about them, and everything that happened with Cherry had rendered them useless as weapons. The only sound was Morgan and Sparky's antics and the gentle water lapping against the edge of their raft.

Wait.

They were in a pool, weren't they? Why was the water rising and falling? That raised a lot more questions.

"Calcine," Brandy said, "Can I pick your brain?"

"Sure," Calcine said, as Sparky hung off her with two arms, the other two firing finger gunshots at Morgan as she deflected the webs with snapping slashes of wind. "If it's about these two, I could dunk them both in the water to cool them off?"

"No," Brandy smiled, "Let them have their fun. It's about this room. It looks huge, right?"

"It does, endless." Calcine said, "A little worried about falling in, to be honest. I sink in water."

The idea Calcine was afraid of anything seemed alien, but Brandy supposed deep water was one thing Calcine couldn't overcome. Gravity would insist she sank; even if she didn't need to breathe, slowly trudging back to shore wouldn't be fun for her. Brandy felt a shiver glide over her skin as she realized the even worse implications of a promise she'd made recently.

"Do you not want to take a boat to Spikemuth after this? I don't want you to be uncomfortable the whole way."

"It'll be a fear to overcome," Calcine said, reaching out to snag Morgan by the collar and then prying Sparky off herself. She pushed the two together and gave them both a smack on the butt before stepping around to come over to Brandy.

Morgan and Sparky didn't devolve into kissing, but they stared at each other intensely as their pressed-together chests rose and fell. Their eyes screamed out the challenge to each other. 'I dare you to start this inevitable face-sucking session.'

Brandy would happily place bets that Sparky would break first, and Morgan had a real streak of stubbornness when challenged.

Calcine offered out open hands to Brandy, and Brandy gently laid her palms in them, savoring the heat rising from Calcine's skin.

"You have my Steam Engine heart," Calcine said. "It likes being fed water, but too much, and it'll splutter and choke. More water than we can boil, and we'll start to falter."

"I love Maple," Brandy grinned. "I don't mind being fed some water."

Calcine batted Brandy's face with her own hands. She almost fell from the light tap, mainly because Morgan and Sparky were rolling around on the raft logs kissing each other in the most aggressively peckish way possible. No moaning meant no Bug Bites were going on yet. Sparky was smart enough to know that Morgan would direct them back to her with Foul Play, but that didn't make her powerless. A soft vibration made the raft shake, and those feathers were getting ruffled.

Well, it was good that those two were getting along. Kind of.

"Don't let Maple overwhelm you. We do need you to keep control now and then." Calcine lifted Brandy's hands, kissing the back of her palms. "And I know I can trust you to keep me calm."

Brandy couldn't stop the blush. "I'll be there. So, um..." she gestured weakly with her head off the raft's edge. "Gym stuff."

"This was Gym stuff," Calcine smiled, "We're baring hearts, aren't we?"

"I'd give us the badge." Brandy nodded, "We've done really well."

"Too right. As for this place? I don't think we're in a big cavern. I can sense the earth isn't that far beyond the dark. There's another trick to this.

"Morgan worked Sparky's sail, though; shouldn't we have got to the edge of the pool?"

"Maybe we can't," Calcine said. "This is a Water Gym. Whatever water Pokémon are nearby could just manipulate the water below the raft and push us back."

"They could." Brandy said, "But we'd see them, wouldn’t we?"

They both looked to the gently shifting water below, staring down into the black, watery depths, perfect for concealing almost anything.

"It is the Water Gym," Calcine said with a swallow. "Would make sense she isn't up here. She's down there."

"Water conducts sound well," Morgan said, face half buried in the yellow fur around Sparky's neck. "She must be listening to our reactions. Using some kind of Water Move to let her use the whole pool as a big speaker, it sounds like she's all around us."

"I'm going to work out why you know such curiously niche things someday." Sparky said, "You got a set of encyclopedias under that hat?"

"It's hiding my giant brain," Morgan said smugly and stuffed her face back into Sparky's fur, shuffling it about as she teased Sparky with a flurry of kisses.

Brandy and Calcine were staring into the water. Calcine had gone quiet; she must have been feeling nervous. Brandy gave her hand a gentle squeeze.

"I'm fine," Calcine said. "Just working out how to go down."

"You don't go down Calcine, that's my job." Sparky cackled as she tried to push Morgan down into her breasts. Four arms gave her a lot of pushing power to do it; the bird was losing the battle. "We never follow the rules for these things, Brandy; what's your plan?"

Did she have a plan? Everything suggested they needed to brave letting go of the raft and swim down into the black, even if it'd be frightening. There was probably an air bubble or some way to breathe down there. They'd have to fight the gym leader in the water, giving her a massive advantage in unfamiliar terrain. Blahaj was the shark queen; she'd have another Sharpedo or two down there to hunt them while they swam.

It'd be a tough battle. To win it, you'd probably have to accept that you couldn't win and let the shark ladies have their fun. The key to winning wouldn't be fighting; it would be baring your heart. You had to ruin them with love.

It sounded fun, but Calcine didn't want to get wet, and she'd move the oceans to provide whatever her partners wanted.

So. Time to fight back.

"Do we even need to beat this gym?" Brandy said, locking eyes with Calcine. Trying to communicate non-verbally that she had a plan. "You and Morgan picked apart Zag and Zoom like they were appetizers, and Sparky had Ziggy eating out of her hands even before she evolved. Sharks can't handle us; they're weaker than I thought."

No response from below, but that just meant she had to lay it on thicker.

"Maybe I should pick the series back up. Ginny should get to go on a date with Sharkina. Show her how strong humans are."

"Make the Sharpedo bite the backboard of the bed?" Calcine said, her white eyes glowing brightly as she caught on to the ploy.

"Ginny and the Strap-On of Destiny." Sparky piped up, "Ziggy loved getting pegged. You could do a great new chapter about Ginny turning Sharkina's brains to mush. Have that shark flopping on the sand begging for some of that human dick."

There was a flash of gold below, but Brandy's Compound Eyes were incredibly good at catching little details like that. Something was getting restless.

"Let's workshop it right now," Morgan said, breaking out of her battle with Sparky. "Show us your craft Brandy, I'd love to hear a tale of how a human made a Sharpedo chew a pillow to shreds. I bet that tail would be so good to hold onto while you pound them behind."

That did it. A blue fin burst out of the water ahead. It was big, enormous even, and decorated with golden stripes that Ziggy certainly hadn't had. A new shark Pokémon? Did she have a Garchomp?

Brandy didn't even have time to dex it because that shark fin was heading toward them with speed.

"Calcine grab the sails, Morgan fire them up!" Brandy ordered and then slapped a fist into her palm. "She can move the water, but can she do it faster than a hurricane-powered sail?"

"Let's find out!" Morgan said, swirling wind around her wings. "Try to slow her down for us."

"Oh, I will. Sparky, are you ready to play some volleyball? We're going to take Electro Ball for a spin."

"Ah fuck yeah," Sparky said, lifting Morgan to her feet and pushing her Calcine's way, who was already assembling the sail. "Electrified sea mines! She's going to regret messing with us."

As the raft began to move, Brandy squinted at that gold-striped blue fin carving through the water again. It was so familiar, but she couldn't quite place why, right on the tip of her tongue.

Blahaj had gone for her hard emotionally, and now this huge physical threat? Brandy had a feeling Blahaj had heard of how they'd crushed the other gyms and was determined not to let Brandy repeat that here.

Well, bring it on. Brandy had a team raging with energy for a fight, and Brandy really wanted to shake some answers about Cherry out of Blahaj. If she wanted to break Brandy's team, she would need a much bigger monster than this.