Death Kindly Stopped for Me

Once, when Galahad was around ten or so, he'd stumbled across the body of a Tropius in the forests near his home.

It had been killed by an Absol perhaps, or one of the clans of Manectric that stalked the area. The stench and the buzzing clouds of flies rising from the mangled corpse had been overpowering in the heat—it had taken him a tremendous effort just to tear his eyes from the gruesome mess and stagger a few shaking feet away to vomit. He'd hoped never to encounter anything like it again.

What he saw and smelled now on the beach was immeasurably worse.

The good Father had been called out to accompany a group led by a woman known as "Phasma" to the beach once the battle was over—though Johto had been forced to retreat its ranks, a temporary truce had been announced to give the losing side a chance to count the dead and retrieve the wounded. The storm had passed, but it left an eerie, tense silence in its wake. The sort that made Galahad's neck prickle as he picked his away around the bodies left half-buried in the sand. He tried to keep his senses geared to pick up movement, calls, cries, but it was difficult to concentrate on finding the living when his mind was reeling in horror at the sheer number of the dead.

He was grateful now that seasickness had already robbed him of his breakfast. He'd need a chat with Elliot to calm his nerves after this. Perhaps they could work on another chapter of that Arthurian novel they hadn't finished yet…

A sudden sharp tug at his consciousness and a slight shift of movement in the corner of his eye dragged him back to reality and he quickly reached up to quiet the Natu fluttering nervously on his shoulder. Something was wrong—flashes of panic were flitting through his mind, Esther was clearly trying to get him to run from something nearby. A guarded scan of the area quickly revealed the source of her fear.

A Mandibuzz stood a few meters away, staring at them.

Galahad had met Harpeia on numerous occasions during his chats with Captain Haye and always found her to be rather pleasant for a vulture, but something about this particular specimen was vastly different. It was massive, for one thing. The bird nearly dwarfed the body of the soldier it was feeding on, its talons nearly as long as Galahad's hand. It didn't budge when the priest took a hesitant step backward, instead it simply watched him calmly as gore dripped from its beak.

He'd never seen anything but kindness behind Harpeia's eyes, but there was nothing in Gyps's calculating gaze.

Only death.