[ti]open[/ti]happy we'll be beyond the sea

Funny how deep of a dive this was; it felt so real when one leapt through the air, or daresay—swam through the water.

Now, with his cover story as ‘an elfin creature from the ocean beyond time’… this place. Well, despite the area being one of the places where the strange ‘invasive species’ could be located…

At least the part where he ventured was peaceful. Well, peaceful enough for him to take a walk around without being intercepted by all manner of building-sized kaiju.

Hanzo the Greninja was walking alongside him, as always—acting as lookout and a travel companion all at once.

‘Out here?’ was the amphibian’s quip.

“Yeah. Look at all that water! It looks so beautiful.”

‘Right, I forgot, you can swim no problem.’

“You forgot, Hanzo? I was on my university’s swim team… though that was like what, almost five, six years ago now,” he hummed as they came down the crest and were now headed towards the shore… oh? There was someone out here, too?

The Greninja thought he’d noticed something swimming underneath the surface of the water; but put it out of his mind until he’d gotten a second—

‘I think you might want to look again.’

“What is it?”

The Greninja had spotted someone’s head slipping under the waves… that didn’t resurface? Uh-oh!

‘I think someone’s in trouble.’

“W-what?!” he would exclaim, before squinting out towards the surface of the… “Hanzo, are you sure you weren’t seeing things?”

‘Would I lie to you?’ the frog deadpanned his way.

He would stammer a few seconds, before tilting his head in the direction of the water.

‘Say less,’ was all the amphibian would hum; before disappearing in a flash of color—headed towards the pier proper. A few seconds would pass before he would follow the Greninja—normally it didn’t take Hanzo this long to investigate whatever strange disturbance they happened upon.

From what he could see, the Greninja then dove into the water off the pier, which was—huh? What was happening?

He would pick up the pace and approach the pier proper itself and jump straight into the water not too long after his Pokémon; he was getting worried because the Greninja hadn’t returned yet.

What had kept Hanzo preoccupied?

“Hanzo, where are you?” he would call once he’d resurfaced, treading water. Where had that Greninja gone off to?!

Nero

The Greninja had cut through the water like a silent little knife, and was now swimming in the murky depths—while he did notice that there was a Kabutops that reminded him of Genji, he knew that the other—the other human presence was… he had to make sure that this other person wasn’t just out here for the fucking hell of it!

‘Are you alright?’ the dual-type would breathe out, bubbles momentarily obscuring his features before allowing those to clear. ‘Is that Kabutops I saw further below yours?’

Because if they were indeed this human’s companion—boy, he would have quite a bit of telling-off for the other Pokémon to do. This was, of course, assuming the other human had PokéSpeech turned on.

If the other person didn’t, well, they were going to have a bit of a problem on their hands here. Edgewise, they would eventually (should they choose to do so) see the white-haired ‘elfin’ cutting through the depths like a Sharpedo, and he would ribbit out once they were close enough, ‘I don’t think they can understand me!’

“Odd,” was all he would hum, treading water quietly in the space between the Greninja and the other player—this person definitely had to be a player, didn’t have an [NPC] tag or anything similar next to their display name—which read ‘Nero’—visible.

(Unless this was an option they had hidden, too. Interesting how deeply immersive the in-game menu was when it came to customization!)

“Hey, hey,” he would bubble through the water—this time trying out the—ooh, he didn’t know he could actually speak underwater and ‘breathe’ just fine—did he like, grow some kind of invisible ‘gills’ or anything now that he had the Swimmer class maxed out—as he tried to catch the other player’s attention.

“I know it’s going to come off as condescending; and I apologize in advance, but. I need you to calm down,” he would continue as he gestured at the other’s erratic movement. “Randomly thrashing in the water while letting the intrusive thoughts get to you won’t help matters.”

He’d learned how to swim the hard way as well back then—literally getting thrown into the water and having a panic attack for all of ten seconds before calming down and letting the buoyancy of the liquid bear his weight. Eventually, everything had to float to the surface—human bodies included, so hopefully this was also the case out here even in virtual reality!

(Because this felt way too real to be just another hallucination.)

The Greninja would swim after the Kabutops, the better to try and get something, anything out of the other dual-type that he’d spotted lurking somewhere not too far away (to the amphibian’s estimate) while he would leave his own human companion to help the other.

Provided the other would follow his advice or not (it was really up to them) he would continue treading water quietly, much like any sane, calm person would. He had years of experience swimming in both calm and choppy waters, so there was a little bonus for him to.

“You have to remember, the water isn’t here to kill us, it’s here to help us. Everything naturally floats,” he would reassure the other while keeping his distance just in case the other didn’t appreciate his physical presence. “Let the water buoy your weight and bring you to the surface.”

Nero