Equilibria - [PG-14]

[BloodRedZangoose]

Rated for minor blood-shed and violence in later chapters.

Right, so first of all let me shamelessly plug the project that this fic is a part of. The Havoc and Serenity Project is a fan-game and fakedex project started by myself and co-creator (aliased in our forums) SpookyPatrol. Equilibria is the story of a beginning Pokemon trainer on his journey through Cuaro - the region in which the games Pokemon Havoc Version and Pokemon Serenity Version are set. This fic's main purpose is to reveal the storyline of these games in as evilly suspenseful a manner as possible.

Chapters will be jointly posted here and on the HaSe Project's forums along with the concise version of the storyline as it would appear in the games.

As Equilibria is part of a fakedex project, a fair amount of original Pokemon feature both heavily and briefly as the story progresses. The project site is constantly being updated with new pages on the people and Pokemon of Cuaro so if you want to know more than is revealed in the fic itself then feel free to head on over there and join our fledgling project. ^^

As a developing writer, I know I still have a lot to learn and I would love to receive as much constructive criticism of Equilibria here and/or via our forums. Hopefully there won't be many straight-forward spelling, punctuation and grammar mistakes but just in case as you read you think there are, please bear in mind that I am English and as such use British spelling, so colour instead of 'color', etc.

Anywho, on with the show!

Actually, one small note: if you recognise this fic that's because I have posted this fic on a couple of other forums too under the names 'JammyU' or 'Zan.' Just in case anyone didn't realise it was me again. ^^

Prologue.​

The Cuaro Region. A dramatic place where towering mountains meet peaceful plains, boiling volcanoes meet sapphire lagoons and scorching deserts meet verdant forests. A place left untouched for millennia and unknown to all but the indigenous peoples of the mountain villages and the roaming tribes of the vast plains.

But as the years of technical advancement in the regions across the sea have continued and the need for energy has swelled, the black gold of the Ouwahlu Desert and the towering trees of the Serpent Forest have drawn in many outsiders: scientists from the dismantled oil-works of Almia, miners from the long-spent quarries of Orre, and money-hungry tycoons from the grand cities of Kanto and Sinnoh.

These people have profited enormously from the land and its bounty, building sprawling cities on the great, flat, plains and pumping the resources for all they’re worth. They spread their poisons like a plague across the once magnificent region.

And as if this ongoing evil wasn’t bad enough, there is a new threat in Cuaro, one that could lead not just to the destruction of the region’s countryside, but to the end of the very universe it is part of.

*** ***


Chapter 1: Sleepy heads and Sailing ships.​

Ethar stared thoughtfully out to sea from the prow of the ship. The ragged coast of the Cuaro Region was just emerging over the horizon. Besides that, the view was grey and gloomy; rain clouds were moving in. The steely-coloured sea bucked and thrashed under the gale of the oncoming storm. The young man wrapped his cloak around himself to protect against the wind and the early-morning chill and redirected his gaze inwards.

The dreams were back, haunting him during the day as well as in the solitude of his cabin. Whenever he was alone, the awful memories crept back into his thoughts.

RrRRRRRrrrrRRR! The whole house was shaking, the young boy clinging to the oak-panelled walls had never felt such power. Every mahogany door rattled on its hinges, every expensive, china ornament vibrated closer to the edge of whichever lofty precipice it was perched on. The boy was panicking. Where were his parents? The staff? Where had everyone gone? It was dark outside the polished, glass window of his bedroom. His nanny had just left to get him a glass of water and then the noises had started; men shouting, the roars and grunts of Pokemon, even a gunshot at one point. The boy had jumped out of his sumptuous four-poster and run out into the hall. The lights were flickering, his eyes couldn’t adjust to the intermittent darkness, and then- CRASH!

A chilly wave of cool sea air swept over the deck, complete with a bucketful of salty spray. Ethar gasped for breath, the panic from all those years ago slowly subsiding.

He glanced downwards at the Decipoise and Blophin playing in the wake of the ship. It was one of the larger of the Pokemon that had caused the splash. Ethar smiled distractedly.

Their sleek, pale blue bodies bucked and dived in the streaming v-shape that spread from the ship’s prow. Some of the male Decipoise playfully jousted each other with their single, spiralled tusk and a female shielded her tiny, young Blophin with her fin as the boat sped past a flock of Wingull dive bombing a school of Remoraid.

Decipoise were well-known for their joyous attitude, but not even their antics could lighten Ethar’s spirits. He sighed and returned to his vigil. His scruffy, black hair whipped around his pale face and his dark clothes were soaked with spray. He couldn’t relax; too much rested on this new start.

A wave of compressed air and a faint pressure on the boys eardrums indicated the arrival of one of his partners. Suddenly and quite impossibly, a humanoid creature with styled, green hair was occupying the section of deck behind the boy. The creature had very large, pinkish eyes and dark green skin. The white, papery garment that grew from its waist was trimmed into the shape of trench-coat tails and it had let its shoulder fringes grow into sleeves. It was a Gardevoir, a powerful Psychic-type Pokemon.

<It’ll be fine, Ethar.> The words resolved themselves into a deep, male-sounding voice in Ethar’s mind. The Pokemon’s mouth hadn’t moved, but his psychic powers presented his intended meaning directly to the boys brain. While Ethar could not directly hear his voice, he would always know what his partner was trying to tell him.

To the average person, this would have felt extremely disconcerting, but Ethar had known the Gardevoir for quite a while now and he was accustomed to the psychic Pokemon’s strange ways.

“I don’t want to just drift anymore. I want answers,” said the young man.

<I thought we agreed we were going to put that behind us,> replied the Gardevoir with a hint of pity in his telepathic voice.

“I can’t do it, Psymon!” he said without turning away from the seascape, “If this ‘Cuaro Region’ doesn’t offer me the new start I want then I’m going to have to go in search of what happened.”

The tall Pokemon laid a slender, green hand on his friends shoulder, <Like I said before, it will be fine. Nobody knows you here. Even if you do let your curse-of-a-name slip again, it will mean nothing to these people.>

“I hope you’re right, Psymon, I really do,” Ethar closed his eyes and took a deep breath. After a few seconds he turned around to face the Gardevoir, a strained smile on his wind-beaten face, “So where are Orvel and Lance?” he asked, “Not causing havoc with our fellow passengers again I hope.”

<Ha-ha, I certainly hope not, they’ve only just finished clearing up the mess in the dining hall,> said the Pokemon, his wide eyes creasing in a smile.

The dark-haired boy smiled properly for the first time that day, “I know! No matter how much trouble that man was having cutting his steak, Orvel was never going to make a better job of it with a Leaf Blade.”

Psymon chuckled, <Let’s get back inside, we’ll be arriving soon and I think I felt a raindrop.>

*** ***​

Far away, in a part of the Cuaro Region not being ravaged by storm for once, the dawn light was just reaching the precarious round-houses and terraced gardens of Tempest Village. In the second brightly-painted house down from the top of the west peak, another boy was dreaming, but not of the horrors of the past. His subconscious imaginings were of the future.

RrrRRRrrRR! The thunderous round of applause reverberated around the stadium, filling the boy with triumphant joy. The battle field stretched out before him, on the other side stood his opponent. Their strongest and final Pokemon was just taking the field. The boys own Pokemon stood in front of him. Having ploughed through the Champion’s first five Pokemon, his faithful partner would annihilate this last obstacle and then the title of Champion of the Cuaro Region would be theirs! The opponent called their move, the boy called his, the two Pokemon rushed across the stage on a collision course that would decide the fate of the battle. Closer, closer, the ground shook under their pounding footsteps, any second now- RrRRrrshk!

With the rattling sound of a blind clattering itself open, a stream of bright sunlight burst through the glassless window of the Pachama family’s round house. The beam found the face of the young boy, though it was largely obscured by a brightly-coloured woven duvet and a tasselled hat of the same material. In fact, if it wasn’t for the tufts of black hair and the nut-brown skin of the boy’s face, he would have passed without difficulty as a bundle of spare rugs.

“RAIMUNDO THEODORE PACHAMA OF THE GREAT TEMPEST MOUNTAINS!” shouted a female voice, “GET UP THIS INSTANT! YOU’RE ALREADY TWO MINUTES LATE FOR WORK!”

The boy grunted and rolled over, but the words gradually sunk into his mind and after much consideration his brain decided that they were due some sort of dramatic recognition.

The boy sat bolt upright, he eyes shot wide open and his duvet flew into a heap on the floor. Now would probably be a good time to highlight the fact that Raimundo, the boy in question, had been sleeping in a hammock. Anybody who has ever slept in a hammock will tell you that sifting your weight as dramatically as Raimundo had just done is not advisable unless you wish to take a short, but highly comical, trip to the floor.

“Rai, did you know that not a single member of the Pachama family had ever fallen out of a hammock for over a century before you were born?” said a young, male voice from above the boy’s head.

“No, Thomas, I didn’t know that. I would thank you for that fascinating tit-bit of information, but my mouth is currently moulding itself into the shape of the carpet weave,” grumbled Raimundo into the rug, “Now, would you please help me up!”

“Rai! That is no way to speak to your brother, and you are perfectly capable of getting yourself up,” said the female voice again, “Although you do need a bit of practice with the timing.”

Rai groaned and pulled himself to his feet. He shuffled laboriously to the table in the centre of the one-roomed hut and began to ladle himself some of the porridge-like cereal that almost all Tempest Village people ate every morning.

“Rai?” asked Morana Pachama, Rai’s mother, “do you have the memory of a Goldeen? I said, YOU ARE LATE FOR WORK!”

Rai dropped the ladle, showering Tommy, his brother, with globules of gelatinous oatmeal. He sprinted across the room in three steps, retrieved a home-woven jacket, an old T-shirt and some faded jeans from their usual pile on the floor and leapt behind one of the various hanging mats to change.

His mind was always doing that - switching back into mindless routine when it should be focusing on something important. He saw it as a sign that he really needed to get out of this place before his brain turned to mush.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like Tempest Village - it was a beautiful place, with its colourful people in even more colourful clothes, its rope bridges and stone staircases. And then there was the looming shadow of Riven Peak, its permanent halo of broiling, purple thunderclouds always pulsing and throwing out the occasional lightning bolt to the Gym’s conducting mast.

Ah, the Gym, thought Rai as he pulled on the second of his thick, Mareep-wool socks. The only relief from the mind-numbing monotony of farming and routine was his job helping out Leader Zach at the eccentric elder’s Pokemon Gym. Sure, it was only mucking-out the Granico and maybe brushing down the Leader’s team if their was a challenge coming up, but it was always the highlight of Rai’s day; and it wouldn’t be for much longer if he didn’t hurry up! Finally dressed, Rai shot out from behind the screen and ran towards the curtained door.

“Remember to open the door before you charge through the curtain this time!” shouted Tommy after him as he hurled his satchel onto his shoulder.

Out in the morning sunshine, he skidded to a stop on the gravely ground of the precipice that his family home was built on. He glanced around, then put his first and second fingers in his mouth and whistled as loud as possible. With a sound of scattering pebbles and galloping hooves, a Pokemon came running round from behind the house. The Pokemon was the size of a large dog and had pale brown fur coating most of its body. There was a tuft of darker brown fur on the top of its head and it had rock-like lumps on its knees and back. It had dark brown, cloven hooves and a short tail that wagged from side to side as it stopped in front of the boy. The Pokemon looked up at him with a quizzical look that seemed to say “and where have you been?”

“Yes, yes, I know I’m late, Cree. Now let’s go, we’ll have to run, but try not to fall over too much, okay?”

The Montama, llama-like Pokemon native to the Tempest Mountains were traditionally reared by the Tempest villagers as beasts of burden. However, they were only useful once evolved into Granico as the young were prone to extreme clumsiness. As a result, from a young age stony protrusions formed on their knees and saddle-area to protect them from injury.

Rai continued at his brutal pace down the staircase hewn out of the side of the mountain down to the next layer. His hat-tassels whipped around his face in the ever-present mountain wind and Cree stumbled wildly, but just managed to stay on her feet, as she cantered along behind him.

Many a head turned as the pair ran past the terrace gardens where most of the food that sustained the community was grown. The farmers shook their heads and turned back to their work. Rai was well-known for his wistful ways and most just saw him as lazy. One farmer even shook his fist at them when a small boulder scattered by Cree’s flailing hooves squashed one of his carefully tended cabbages. Rai waved to his father when he saw him in the distance tending the family’s flock of Mareep which were grazing on the sparse vegetation that sprouted between the rocks on the sides of the mountains. But after the quick greeting they continued hurriedly on their way.

Eventually, Rai’s frantic dashing brought him to the start of the bridge which spanned the ravine between the East and West peaks of Tempest Village. He shielded his eyes from the sun and searched the distant other side for people coming in the opposite direction. He really was late - the bridge, though only just big enough to allow two people to pass each other, was normally bustling with people on their way to work or visiting friends and family when Rai reached it in the morning. Now though, a solitary shepherd was the only person coming across the bridge.

“Oh, lord Zephound of the thunderclouds, how can my day get any worse,” swore Rai to himself. He had just noticed that the shepherd was not so solitary after all. There was a flock of Mareep, with the occasional pink Flaafy sticking out from the crowd, moving slowly onto the bridge after him.

The yellow, woolly sheep Pokemon, though very useful for making clothes (and delicious with potatoes on special occasions) were not famed for their intelligence, and they were still - even after hundreds of years of successful crossings - terrified of traversing the bridge.

Rai slumped down onto a near-by boulder and put his head in his hands. Cree nuzzled him affectionately with her wet snout but the boy pushed her away.

“It’s hopeless, Cree,” he muttered into his gloves, “they’ll take at least an hour getting over the bridge and we couldn’t push past them even if we tried. I’m going to be so late that they’ll be eating noon meal by the time I get to the Gym. And then I’ll be fired for sure.”

Cree hung her head, she hated to see her friend and trainer like this. If only she could help him… but wait! She had crossed to the other mountain plenty of times without using the bridge. The Granico and Montama owned by the villagers were allowed to roam free most of the time and there was a cliff that jutted out further down the mountain that narrowed the void just enough that you could jump from it and land on another cliff on the other side. It was a long way down and back up again, and she had never managed to make the jump without falling over, but it would still be faster than waiting for the Mareep.

“Tama!” cried Cree and tugged at Rai’s jacket. The boy looked up, confused by his Pokemons sudden change of mood.

“What, you want me to follow you?”

“Tama-tama!” said the llama Pokemon excitedly.

“I suppose I’ve got nothing better to do,” he reasoned glumly, “Come on then.”

The faithful Pokemon led her trainer to the top of the path that led to the leaping cliff. Rai looked down the worn trail and spotted where it ended.

“No way! I can’t jump that Cree! You may be able to slide on your knee pads for a while if you crash, but I could kill myself trying to make that. A Granico would jump it easily but - hang on a second…”

With a mischievous look in his eye, Rai glanced around the precipice, searching for - yes! There was a small group of Granico grazing beside one of the houses. He approached the large animal with caution. They were much larger and stronger than their prevolutions, with fully developed rock-hard armour on their legs and backs. But the armour wasn’t used for protection anymore, one kick from one of those stone hooves could send you flying off the side of the mountain if you made the wrong move.

The closest beast was a beauty. One and a half metres tall at the shoulder, with a black sheen to its rocky hide and an earthy brown shade of glossy fur. It was wearing a cloth saddle on top of its natural stone one with a bronze name-plaque that read ‘Obsidian.’ Rai crouched down and plucked a handful of grass from the ground.

“Here Siddy, Siddy, Siddy,” He called to the Granico, “I’ve got a nice bit of foody-woody here for the Pokemon that lets me ride him for a while.”

Cree rolled her eyes but obviously ‘Sid’ wasn’t the smartest Granico in the world because he eagerly abandoned the perfectly edible patch of identical grass he’d been standing on and trotted over to the stems in Rai’s hand. As he munched the grass, the boy swung himself up onto the saddle without the slightest resistance from Sid.

He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a small, green, spherical object. It was Cree’s Pokeball, hewn from a green Apricorn to promote friendship by Rai’s father and given to him - complete with his first Pokemon - on the day of his tenth birthday. He twisted the top off and the strange, red light poured out and enveloped Cree, drawing her into the ball.

Rai pocketed the ball and spurred his new mount on with his heel. Grabbing the reins he directed Sid towards the path that Cree had pointed out. The way down was boulder -strewn and treacherous, but the Granico had obviously been this way before as he made his way down it as sure-footedly as if he were pulling his owners plough across a cabbage field. That was a thing, what would happen when Sid’s owner realised he was missing? In the heat of the moment Rai had skimmed over the consequences of his actions. He’d have to point him in the right direction once they were on the other side and hope that the slow-witted creature would find his way back.

Eventually, they reached the precipice. The mirror cliff on the other side was about three metres away from the edge, but the yawning chasm in between made it seem like thirty. If Rai had ever watched TV then the view of the valley below would have reminded him of a Manic Manectric fall scene from PokeToons, with the thin, blue river winding between the jagged boulders at the bottom. But Rai would need more than a sign saying ‘Ouch!’ if he missed this target. Shaking with the prospect of what lay seconds away, Rai encouraged his borrowed steed as close to the edge as he dared.

“C’mon, Siddy,” he urged, “you know you can do it boy. Look, there’s a nice tasty patch of grass over on that side for you if you make it.”

That seemed to do the trick because, with a lick of his dextrous lips, the beast launched himself into the air. Unfortunately, in his haste to reach his next meal, Sid had forgotten to account for the extra wait on his back and when he made his jump only the front part of his body cleared the gap. The huge llama scrabbled with its stony hooves on the gravely surface of the edge but he was slipping fast. He couldn’t get any purchase on the side of the cliff with his back legs either - the overhang was far too shear.

“Graaa!” bleated the huge creature, his barrel chest sliding over the pebbles.

Meanwhile, Rai was frantically trying to free his feet from the stirrups so that he could climb over the llama’s head and help pull him up. But the time was up, Sid, the magnificent Granico and pride of his owner, lost his tenuous grip on the cliff and slid off into the pristine mountain air.

*** ****​

 

[BloodRedZangoose]

56 views and no comments? :< Come on guys, if you read it there must be some advice or constructive criticism you could give.

Anyway, here's Chapter 2:

Chapter 2: Thunder and Lightning.​

Riven Peak - Zach

“I hope you appreciate this, Reafear,” mumbled the white-haired old man, stumbling up the last section of the not-so-beaten path of the old Route 15 with his walking stick clattering on the rough ground. It had been a gruelling hike, taking Zach the better part of three days, but the climb to Riven Peak would be worth it: looking to the South, he could see that the storm he’d been waiting for was on the way.

As an Electric-type Gym Leader, Zach had a responsibility to raise his Pokemon to be as tough as they could possibly be. This meant training and evolving his Pokemon to their strongest forms. Unfortunately, one species of Pokemon that lived in his Gym was notorious for its particularities of evolution.

Reafear, though reputably very wise and knowledgeable, were almost entirely immobile due to the fact that they were basically elongated balls of feathers; but for the piercing eyes and equally piercing beak at one end. The Reafear of the Tempest Gym were kept in one of the cavernous cellars dug into the mountain beneath the Gym, where they hibernated peacefully in preparation for evolution and were tended personally by Zach alone.

‘Kept,’ however, is possibly the wrong term as the Reafear had resided in the mountain’s caves since long before the human colonisation of the mountains. The Pokemon had been discovered shortly after the village was founded, and - after Zach set up the Gym years later - he decided to study the strange Pokemon’s ways. He eventually discovered that the Pokemon spent most of their time gathering static electricity from the air, which, due to the almost constant stream of small thunderstorms which gave the range its name, was not in short supply. However, further research indicated that a thunderstorm of immense power was needed to pump the Pokemon with enough power to make the final leap into their next evolutionary stage.

Unfortunately for the elderly Leader, all the great storms of the Tempest Mountains were attracted towards the highest peak in the range. Towering over all others by at least fifty metres, this was Riven Peak; a mountain struck by lightning over and over again for so long that after a particularly violent storm many centuries ago, the mountain’s peak had completely split in two, leaving a jagged crack clearly visible from the Tempest Village. Of course, legends told a different story of a mighty battle between the minions of Rayquaza - the spirit of the air and Groudon - the beast of the earth, in which a valiant Zephound had laid down its life in one mighty strike at the monster’s greatest strong-hold - using all his energy to tear the mountain in half and allow Rayquaza to finish the battle once and for all.

The end result of all this research and superstition was that Zach was currently attempting to carry a forty-five kilogram ball of feathers up the side of the most inaccessible mountain in the whole of the Cuaro region.

Being a wild Pokemon simply in the custody of the Gym, the Reafear didn’t have a pokeball. Though Zach could quite easily have battled and caught it himself, the Reafear both refused to battle and to stay in the several balls that Zach had thrown at it on the off-chance it was too indifferent to care.

Eventually though, the odd-looking pair finally made it to the base of the gargantuan crack in the side of the mountain. Zach straightened up, grimacing as his vertebrae realigned themselves, and let the well-padded Pokemon slip off onto the scorched ground. He was just about to breath an immense sigh of relief when he stopped stock-still. He could hear voices.

Though the acoustics of the massive gouge in the mountain were certainly strange the voices definitely sounded close, and they were not the voices of anyone he knew - nobody from the village would be stupid enough to climb up here without good reason, of that he was sure.

As the voices came closer, Zach darted behind a outcrop of rock. He was just in time too, as two strangely clothed men appeared from around a larger outcrop further inside the mountain. They were wearing black and white uniforms with gold patterns, one was relatively plain, but the other had a stylishly cut-off sleeve and a silver sash across his chest. They both wore dark glasses but Zach was fairly sure he wouldn’t have recognised them anyway; nobody he knew had the money or stupidity to dress like that. Zach had to stop himself from scoffing at the more flamboyantly dressed man’s floppy, spiked fringe of light-brown hair that hung over one of his already-concealed eyes.

“As I suspected, Sir, this place is chock-full of Thunderstones,” said the more plainly-dressed man to the other as he walked ever closer to where Zach was hiding.

“Yeah,” said the other. “I’d say this scouting mission has been a thorough success.”

So they were after the Thunderstones, thought Zach. Zach himself had known that the rare crystals that facilitated the evolution of certain species of Pokemon could be found here for some time - in fact, he’d used them himself on several occasions during his training - but he had a feeling that these goons weren’t just after two or three.

“Absolutely, Mr. Orion, Sir, should we be heading back now?” said the man who had spoken. He trailed slightly behind the other and sort of skittered around him in a permanent bow as though to accentuate his colleague’s power over him.

“Not just yet, grunt, you have yet to mark out the route for the road. After all, if we’re gonna start mining anytime soon, construction on a through route from the City must begin immediately.”

“Yes, Sir, absolutely, Sir.”

“If we find any more precious minerals up here, it could even become a new highway - Xerxes will reward me greatly for finding it.”

“You mean us, Sir?”

“I know what I mean, Grunt,” said the leading man, turning to face his partner. He was obviously unaccustomed to his inferiors speaking out of turn.

“Yes, Sir, of course you did, Sir.”

Zach couldn’t believe it, taking Thunderstones without asking the locals was bad enough, but what was all that about mining? And who did they think they were, planning a road without so much as a passing query with those it would affect most?

“Hmm, grunt?” said the man called Orion, “did you feel a raindrop just then?”

“No, Sir, but I did see some dark clouds moving in earlier,” answered the other man, glancing up at the slash of sky high above.

“Ugh, typical. Do something about it, would you, it’s bad enough that the altitude makes me nauseous, I’m not getting wet as well.”

“Yes, Sir, right away, Sir,” the underling reached into the inside pocket of his strange uniform, and - to Zach’s surprise - brought out a Pokeball. He tossed it into to the air and after a brief flash of white light, a small, grey Pokemon appeared floating in midair in front of the man.

“Castform, Sunny Day,” ordered the Pokemon’s trainer and the grey blob obeyed, launching what looked like some kind of bright flare up into the sky.

The glowing missile rocketed out past the shattered peak of the mountain and vanished out of sight amongst the already encroaching thunderclouds. A moment later there was a bright flash of light and Zach, who had been watching the whole process from his hiding place, winced and shielded his eyes with his hands. When he eventually blinked away the black spots from in front of his eyes, the whole sky had transformed; black clouds were replaced by completely clear blue skies above the opening in the mountain. The Pokemon too seemed to have transformed. Its previously nondescript body had become a vibrant orange and some sort of jelly-like substance coated its entire frail-looking form.

“That Castform of yours may not be standard issue,” remarked Orion, “but it certainly has its uses.”

That’s the final straw, thought Zach. Not only were this pair of nitwits planning to hollow-out this amazing natural monument looking for precious stones and wealth-bringing minerals, but they had taken away the whole reason for Zach’s strenuous journey, and Reafear’s last chance of evolving for what could be months.

He itched to march out to the goons and confront them directly but, to his extreme annoyance, he realised that he had neglected to bring any Pokemon except Reafear with him on his journey. The Reafear itself was curled up in the shadow of the rock that Zach had been hiding behind and had so far gone un-noticed by the men. Expertly masking his disdain, Zach decided his own aggression would have to make up for that of his absent Pokemon.

“Oi, you two, by what authority do you presume to foul this sacred place with your presence?” he asked the two men, forcefully announcing his presence as he strode out to give them both a peace of his mind. He paused to make sure he had the men’s attention and then continued, “You, with the stupid hair-cut, you call yourself Orion but what of the celestial beauty of this landscape? How can you even contemplate building roads and mining out this amazing structure?” he shouted, letting his passion find the words.

In reaction, Orion’s eyebrows slowly rose above the top of his sunglasses. He turned to his partner, “Grunt,-” he started, but was cut-off by Zach drawing in breath for another proclamation, but his interruption only served to frustrate Orion further.

“No, old man,” he sneered, casually removing his shades to reveal cold, indifferent, grey eyes, “I think you should stop your ridiculous rant right there and tell me by what authority you are here.”

Now Zach was normally a distinguished figure, respected throughout the Tempest Mountains, but after being affronted in such a bare-faced, arrogant manner in his own home, this was rather lost in his next outburst.

“By what authority!?” he roared, his tanned face turning beetroot red, “I am Zachario Boltone, Gym Leader of Tempest Village!! I have been a master of the art of Pokemon training for over 50 years and I will not stand for such insolence!!”

“I see, the Gym Leader,” Orion rolled his eyes as Zach’s attention turned to his partner.

“And what of you, “Grunt,” are you just a mindless drone? Who are you to play with the weather for your own convenience? Such techniques are for use in small-scale battles and no-when else!”

“Um, I-I,” stuttered the quivering man.

“If you have quite finished,” said Orion, “then I think we’ll be on our way.”

“What do you mean, ‘on your way?’” asked Zach, flustered at the apparent lack of effect his speech had had.

“Grunt, see to it that this insufferable OAP does not cause further trouble with our development,” instructed Orion.

“But Sir, he’s a Gym Leader, his Pokemon must be much higher levels than mine,” panicked the nervous henchman.

“And what Pokemon are those, Grunt?” said Orion smugly.

“…” answered the grunt.

“Exactly: no bag, no belt, no Pokeballs in sight. Even if he is a Gym Leader, this doddering old fool has neglected to bring so much as a Magikarp with him.”

Orion man pulled out his own Pokeball and tossed it into the air. A large, brown bird with a spiked crest remarkably similar to its owner’s materialised in front of him, accompanied by a strange shower of glittering light.

The grunt just had time to say “Then of course, Sir,” before his partner replaced his sunglasses and jumped onto the back of the bird before soaring off through the gap in the mountain. After watching Orion’s rapid exit, the liberated henchman turned his attention to Zach.

“You have to understand, Old Timer, I don’t want to do this,” he sneered, “but orders are orders.”

Zach glanced around nervously, the man made no move to reach for another Pokemon and, though reasonably tall, he didn’t look like the brawling type. So exactly how was he going to be dispatched? The hovering Pokemon certainly didn’t seem up to the task even if Zach didn’t have any Pokemon to protect him. The Castform had been bobbing around aimlessly since its last order and didn’t seem interested in much that was going on.

“Now that Orion’s gone, I think it’s time for another change in the weather,” said the grunt. “Castform, Rain Dance!” he shouted at his Pokemon.

Using whatever force kept it up in the air, the Castform started whizzing around in mid-air in ever-decreasing circles. As the name of the attack suggested, it seemed to be doing some sort of crazy dance. Suddenly, it halted its spinning and turned its face towards the sky. As it did so, the thunderclouds from earlier suddenly reappeared above the crack and the orange jelly around the Castform’s head was replaced by blue, which reshaped itself into the semblance of a raindrop.

The man seemed very pleased with himself, “Now, Castform,” he ordered, “use Thunder!”

The little Pokemon turned its attention to the only possible target, Zach, and with a crackle of static from around the blue jelly a massive bolt of electricity screamed down from the clouds spiralling above.

As soon as the attack was called, Zach knew what was coming and he braced himself for what he knew was one of the strongest of all electric attacks. He heard the almost instantaneous clap of thunder, he saw the entire crevice light up - but he did not feel the coursing agony of one hundred million volts - because, to the surprise of both humans and Pokemon, the bolt - which had been perfectly on target - curved away from Zach and seemingly embedded itself in the ground not ten feet away.

But Zach knew that it had not gone directly into the ground. He knew what had attracted the strike and he knew what would happen next. He’d been waiting for that bright glow growing in the shadow for years and the time was finally here. The glow expanded and diverged until the Reafear’s body was lost amongst the searing light. Suddenly, with one last flash, the glow disappeared, but the creature within still shone like the sun. The energy of evolution still coursing through its veins, the creature turned what must have been its head towards its trainer’s assailants and loosed its own Thunderbolt towards them. The man and the Pokemon were thrown backwards onto the ground, stunned but not dead. Then, the shining beast swooped towards Zach and the elderly man found himself being carried out of the dark crack and back towards his village.

As the beast flew over the rugged mountain-tops, its glow slowly faded to reveal its new form. But Zach had little time to admire his new Pokemon as he noticed something strange going on in the distance. He couldn’t see who it was, but somebody seemed to be attempting to climb down the side of the East Peak of the village on a Granico. As the figure reached a protruding ledge, Zach noticed the stream of Mareep pouring slowly across the bridge and realised what whoever it was was going to try to do.

“Surely they’re not…” he mumbled to himself.

His mount heard him and followed his gaze. It must have made the same deduction as he had because it suddenly accelerated with one flap of its enormous wings. As it flew over the Gym, it let out an ear-splitting sound that was somewhere between a screech and a roar. In response, what looked like some sort of green cloud rose up and began to tail them.

The great creature slowed enough as it passed one of the villages precipices that Zach was just able to slide from its back, then, it folded in its wings and dropped like a stone to the incident below.

*** ***​

Approximately fifty metres from certain death - Raimundo Pachama.

“WAAAAaaaaAAAAAHHHHhhhh!!!!” screamed the terrified young boy as he sailed through the air with his eyes clenched shut against the spiralling, jagged rocks he knew were rushing up to give him a very painful welcome to the world beyond.

“GRrAAAAaaaoooOOOORRr!!!!” screamed the terrified Granico as he realised that he would never eat that oh-so-juicy grass he’d seen on the cliff on the other side of the drop.

“WAAAAaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!- Ooff!” went the boy’s body. Rai’s descent had been abruptly stopped, but not as a abruptly as he’d thought it would, and with none of the agonising pain he’d expected to feel.

“GRRrraaaaooooo!!!- Ruh!?” went the llama as the rushing in his ears gradually slowed and was replaced by a sharp pain from the hair along his back.

“Swoosh….Swoosh….Swoosh,” a nice sound, almost peaceful; not one you’d expect to hear if you’d just died; and to Rai’s surprise, he seemed to not only have stopped falling but to actually be accelerating upwards. Bravely, he decided it was about time to open his eyes and find out just what was really going on.

The sight that met the boy’s eyes was as perplexing as it was magnificent. The sides of the canyon were sweeping past at a terrific pace and two enormous, green-feathered wings were beating the air on either side of his position on the similarly cloaked back of a creature that he seemed to be riding. In front of him was the creature’s head. It was mostly hidden by a large, elaborate crest, but a viciously-hooked beak could just be glimpsed between the long feathers and lightning-bolt shaped appendages. Behind, a similarly adorned tail corkscrewed through the air, its emerald scales glinting as they rose out of the shadows between the mountains.

As the pair cleared the side of the gorge and climbed up past the part of the mountain Rai had ridden down on Sid, the beautiful, winged creature gradually slowed until it was hovering over the ledge where the bridge joined the side that the boy had been trying to reach.

Standing there, smiling as always and with his zany white hair stuck straight up on end as usual was Zach: Leader of the Tempest Village Gym and Rai’s boss.

“You, Boy, are late for work!” called the elderly Leader, tilting his brown, wrinkled face up to the morning sun and squinting up at the boy on the great, green creature.

Rai’s mount wheeled round and came into land on the stony ground of the wide ledge, ruffling the Leader’s multicoloured caftan with the powerful beats of its wings.

As he slid off of the feathery creature’s back, it coiled its scaly tail underneath itself and folded its enormous wings along its sides. Rai stepped backwards to get a better look at the thing from the front and find out exactly what had saved him.

In essence, it had the general shape of a huge, green bird, except for the fact that it had no legs, and its body was far more serpentine. Its body tapered from where its waist would have been to a long, whip-lash tail which, as Rai had seen earlier, was covered in bright green scales that also spread up its front to cover the creatures belly. The rest of its body and its wings were covered in dark-green feathers. Its face was dominated by the razor-sharp, hooked bill which was lined with small, jutting fangs, and a pair of indigo eyes that peered down at the amazed young boy. Also observed by Raimundo as he had ridden the beast up from certain death were the magnificent crests that adorned the creatures crown and the tip of its tail with their long, lustrous feathers and golden lightning-bolts.

“Isn’t she a beaut’?” remarked Zach as he came up behind the awestruck Raimundo.

“She’s one of your Pokemon?!” asked Rai, surprised, “But I’ve never seen her before, and I‘ve worked at the Gym for almost a whole year now.”

“Yes, indeed she is,” replied the leader, trying to conceal his pride, “and the reason you haven’t seen her would be that she was a Reafear until a few minutes ago.”

“I thought Reafear only evolved after especially violent storms,” puzzled Rai.

“Yes,” replied Zach, “it supplies them with energy they need to make the transition to Ampifear.”

“Ampifear, so that’s her name…” muttered Rai, still gob-smacked at the amazing creatures beauty.

“Actually, that’s why I was out at Riven Peak, but-” started Zach.

“Uh, Leader, what’s that noise?” interrupted Rai.

Stunned by the events of the Ampifear’s appearance and life-saving flight, Rai had completely forgotten about his inadequately-agile steed. Turning around to face the gorge, however, his fears were dispelled before they were realised as, preceded by a mad fluttering mass of green feathers, Sid the Granico appeared slowly and laboriously over the edge of the precipice

“Of course, said Zach, continuing on as if the sight before them was completely expected, “a Pokemon such as Ampifear doesn’t come soaring straight over a crowded Gym without attracting reinforcements - a whole flock of them in fact.”

Sid was not happy. As well as almost dying once already that morning, his carefully trimmed fur was messed-up, sticking on end and even ripped out in places. His back hurt dreadfully and his carefully polished rock plates were all scratched-up and even defecated in places. And all because of the forty or so blasted, tiny birds that were gripping him everywhere possible with their blasted, tiny claws.

Exhausted, bedraggled, and their miniature wings thoroughly spent, the entire flock of little, green birds released their grip and dropped their load onto the pebbly ground before collapsing onto the same ground themselves. The whole flock wheezed and gasped for breath in the thin mountain air.

Sid stood, legs splayed, knees shaking, his previously coifed fringe hanging in tatters in front of his big, brown eyes. After a brief pause, he flicked his mane over his neck, turned on the spot and trotted as dignifiedly as possible back down the mountain to find the tuft grass he’d seen earlier from the ledge.

As the Granico’s brown-haired rump disappeared over the lip of the precipice, both Zach and Raimundo burst into fits of laughter on the gravel floor. At one disapproving glare from the Ampifear, however, the two suppressed their amusement and wiped the tears from their eyes.

“Ampikeet sure are strong for their size, aren’t they?” said Zach, once he’d regained his composure.

Rai, nodded his head mutely, still chuckling at the image of the man-handled Granico and the dozens of tiny birds.

“But I suppose they would be, being the first stage of what eventually becomes Ampifear over here,” continued Zach, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the massive, coiled bird.

Rai’s silent laugh caught in his throat as he gasped in surprise. “You mean..?”

“Yep, every one of the Gym’s ‘mysterious’ Reafear was once a plain old Ampikeet.”

Stunned by the ups and downs and streams of information of the last few minutes, Rai wandered over to the scattered pile of green fluff that was Sid’s saviours.

“I suppose we should help them back to the Gym,” said Zach, appearing at Rai’s shoulder again. Rai agreed and the two crouched down to assist their valiant helpers. The tiny birds hopped eagerly onto the boy and elder’s arms and clothes, their miniature crests bobbing on the tops of their heads. The birds, which were part of the huge flock that made their home on the cross-bars and struts of the Gym’s enormous conducting pylon, had become so much a part of the scenery for Rai that he’d never contemplated any relationship of theirs with the mysterious Reafear or the - until this morning - practically mythical Ampifear. All he knew about them was that they ate absurd amounts of bird-seed (which he had to scatter in the Gym’s yard every morning) for birds of such diminutive stature. Each one was eight inches tall from the top of their head to the tip of their stubby tail and they had bushy, lightning-shaped eye-brow tufts that gave them a permanent scowl that, now that he’d seen their relation, he saw mimicked the Ampifear’s perfectly.

Together, with those who failed to find purchase on the pair’s clothes hopping wearily along behind them, Zach and Rai carried the flock up two stone staircases to the Gym, where they fluttered off up to their favourite roosting spots.

Suddenly, something occurred to Rai and he spun around to face the direction they’d come from. From his position - the Gym was situated on the very top of the West Peak - he could see all the way down to the bridge, but, after not seeing what he was looking for there, he looked further afield to the jagged horizon. There, a dark shape was flapping off into the south between two distant mountains.

“Leader, Sir,” asked Rai, “I thought you said Ampifear was your Pokemon.”

“Yes, Boy, it belonged to me once, if you can truly own such a thing.”

“Then where’s it going?”

Zach sighed, “I could not hope to contain a creature as wild as that. My cramped little dojo is no place for a Pokemon of the sky,” the wizened old man bleared dreamily after the Pokemon he’d cared for for so long. The boy looked at him with such a worried expression on his face, but he could not possibly know the pain in him, he was not to know that the Leader had loved the Reafear like a member of his own family and that he had saved not just the life of Rai and the Granico that morning but Zach’s too.

“Now, Boy,” said Zach, straightening his back and turning to look at Rai face on, “Come inside, we have a long discussion ahead of us.”

***​

The short man with his frizzy, white hair strode purposefully, and quickly for his stature, along the Gym’s gloomy corridors. His sandals flopped noisily against the dusty floor and his young assistant had to practically jog after him whilst he feebly tried to grovel at the same time.

“Leader, Sir, I’m sorry I was so late. It won’t happen again, I swear. It’s just that my brother snores and, and-”

Zach stopped dead and Rai almost ran into the back of him.

“Boy!” he shouted, turning around to look at Rai with a eyes so intense that they terrified the young boy. He had seen the Leader angry a few times before, but he was generally jovial, almost childlike - his smile was renowned throughout the village. But he wasn’t angry now, no, the look that scared Rai so much was fear itself. There is something about seeing someone you depend on scared themselves that petrifies you to your very core.

“L-l-leader, I-?” Rai started.

“I have not called down to the cellar to talk about your tardiness, Boy!” boomed Zach.

Looking around, Rai saw that they really were in one of the underground passages, he’d been so caught up in worrying that he hadn’t noticed that they were descending or that the wattle and daub walls had become chiselled mountain bedrock.

Suddenly, Zach’s features softened once more, and a tentative smile appeared on his face, but it was so fake and his eyes remained so deplorable that it looked more like a grimace to the stunned Rai.

“Please, Rai,” he said quietly, “come in here with me.” He waved towards the low, wooden door that he’d stopped in front of. He turned the ancient, rusty handle and beckoned Rai inside.

Behind the nondescript door was the most extraordinary room Rai had ever seen. In a village of one-room huts and stone-walled terraces, the Gym was obviously the most impressive building, but Rai thought he’d explored all its secrets in the time he’d been there. How had he walked past this room so many times without once wondering what lay behind it?

“Welcome to my study, Rai,” said Zach.

The room looked to be a standard size, but then, the far wall was cloaked in darkness; there was no telling what lay behind the curtain of shadow. Only the section nearest the door was lit up by an electrical chandelier in the domed, stone ceiling. In the small pool of light was a large, mahogany desk with a reading lamp and various papers scattered about it. On the walls were rows and rows of shelves, some made of the same wood as the desk and others hewn from the rock itself. Some of the shelves were filled with books of all shapes and sizes, but the majority were lined with more Pokeballs than Rai had ever seen. There were the standard red and white kind, and some carved from apricorns like Cree’s. The multitude had a black top with a yellow bar but some more obscure varieties were dotted around; green and purple ones, blue ones with black criss-cross patterns, and Rai even swore he saw one with a small, white ‘M’.

In one of the walls, there was a dark alcove, with a few pieces of straw poking out into the light. A low growling sound emanated from the space and then a pair of bright, glowing, red and yellow eyes flicked open in the darkness.

Suddenly, from behind the desk came a joyful barking sound and a blue and yellow canine came sprinting around the side of it and ran, skidding on the smooth stone floor, up to Zach, its tongue lolling playfully out of his fanged mouth. The dog jumped up at Zach, putting his paws up almost on his shoulders and barked happily in his wrinkled face.

“Down, Lightning, down Boy,” said the Leader, smiling and trying to brush off the Pokemon, who was at least as tall as his trainer.

Suddenly, from the alcove in the wall, jumped a large, black, cat-like Pokemon. It leapt clear across the room in one mammoth jump and landed in front of Rai. It growled low in its throat and stared at the boy with its all-seeing eyes. Its fur dark fur crackled with static electricity and its gaze seemed to root Rai to the spot.

“Thunder,” said Zach to the Pokemon, “back down, Rai is a friend. Okay?”

The cat gave one last growl and then padded over to rub itself against Zach’s back, purring contentedly. As soon as its stare was broken, Zach found he could move again.

“Sir, who are these Pokemon?” he asked now that he could move his lips.

“These are Thunder and Lightning. Not imaginative names, I know, but when you’re ten years old you don’t really think long about that sort of thing,” he smiled.

“So they’re your first two Pokemon? Wow. What are they?”

“Well, Lightning here is a Manectric,” he said, gesturing towards the yellow and blue dog. It had a large crest of vertical, yellow hair on its head and sharp, white claws on its four feet that skittered on the floor when it moved.

“And Thunder is a Luxray,” he continued, stroking the spiked, black mane of the large, cat. It had blue and yellow striped patches on the backs of its legs and a yellow, star-shaped end to its tail.

“Why haven’t I met them before, Sir? I normally prepare your team before challenges and I’d of thought you’d use your strongest Pokemon as much as possible.”

“Well, Boy, these guys are almost as old as me, and I’m afraid that their battling days are long since over.”

“But Lightning was running like mad when it saw you, and what about Thunder’s jump?” exclaimed Rai.

“Oh, they certainly have enough energy in them to show their love when they want to, but a sustained battle is just too much.”

The two Pokemon hung their heads in shame. Manectric quickly recovered and resumed his goofy smile, but Thunder walked back over to his alcove and, showing his age with the difficulty it caused him, clambered back up to his alcove.

“Now Rai, you mentioned challenges,” started Zach, walking over to pull up a swivel-chair by his desk and motioning for Rai to do the same, “that is partly what I wanted to talk to you about. When was the last challenge I had, do you remember?”

“Well,” said Rai, clearing a few stray sheets of paper from a chair he’d dug out of the chaos around the desk, “there was that newbie from Youthville a few months ago and before that…”

“In actual fact, there have been five challenges in the year you’ve been here. I normally get at least three times as many as that,” answered Zach.

“Really, what do you think’s wrong? Do you think it’s the location, I mean we are at the top of a mountain,” Rai reasoned.

Zach chuckled absentmindedly, “No Rai, I think something much more serious is going on. This morning, I was at Riven Peak and I ran into two strangers who were talking about building some kind of road through the mountains to get at the ‘resources’ in Riven Peak.”

“But that would ruin the landscape! As well as disturbing all the wild Pokemon!” Rai exclaimed.

“Exactly, I need to find out what is going on. I know somebody in Youthville that may be able to help us, but unfortunately I’m getting old, Rai, and that climb up to Riven Peak was almost too much for me. The trip down to the foothills and back might just finish me off.”

Rai looked embarrassedly down at his feet. Zach got up out of his chair, leaning on his stick, and turned towards the far back wall.

“Come with me, Boy,” he said.

Rai caught up with the Leader and as they reached the edge of the pool of light cast by the chandelier. Zach he clapped his leathery hands together. The sound reverberated unexpectedly and a light flicked on far in the distance, throwing just enough light to convince Rai that the room he was in was much larger than he originally thought.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, Rai began to see details in the gloom. Directly beneath the beam that shone straight down from the ceiling far above was a large, flat hump of stone that just about broke the surface of an enormous, black lake that stretched out to the pockmarked stone walls far away in the darkness. As the light bounced off the tiny ripples on the surface, Rai gazed down into the inky depths. Somewhere down there, he thought he could see other lights, slowly rising up to the surface.

“Sir, are there Pokemon in there?” asked Rai, surprised.

“Well,” said Zach, “some of the Pokemon I accumulated on my journey are partial to the deepest of oceans, but when I set up the Gym, I found that they liked the waters of this lake just as much.”

Rai stared in awe as little, shining baubles on the end of bluish antenna bobbed around at the surface of the lake.

“Journeys are wonderful things Rai,” said Zach, staring nostalgically into the distance. “You meet new people and Pokemon, you see new towns and cities and you make friends along the way. It sounds corny but I think everyone should go on a journey at some point, even if it is just to the next village.”

Rai turned to face his mentor. “What are you saying, Leader?” he asked, the fact that he knew what was coming plastered clearly over his face.

“Rai, I want you to go to Youthville for me,” said Zach, fulfilling Rai’s hopes.

Though overjoyed, deep-down, Rai realistically wondered why the elder hadn’t asked one of the older, more experienced, villagers to help him. As if he’d read his mind, Zach answered his question before it passed his lips.

“Rai, I have asked you for several reasons,” he said. “One: you have your own Pokemon, Cree should be very useful on your trip. Two: you’re old enough now to take on some responsibility. And three: you are the only one in the village with nothing better to do.”

Rai couldn’t help smiling as Zach reached up to put his arm around his young protégé’s shoulder.

“What do you say?” he asked.

“When do I leave?” replied Rai.

*** ***​