Chapter 0: An Unexpected Encounter
by dust_scoutPresent Day…
For the past nine years, I have been performing my duty with great care and in a nomadic fashion, living off the wild more or less. For me, my duty involved the management of storms (yes, storms). From thunderstorms to typhoons, I had to be there to make sure they don’t go out of hand. Granted, I wasn’t among the main lengendaries that did the deed of making storms or anything, those folks would be Tornadus, Thundurus, and Zapdos in the most common cases. Obviously, I wasn’t a flying type at all; I can’t even generate a spark without prior preparation. (Thanks a lot, Arceus.) Heck, some folks wouldn’t even recognize me since I was so obscure in terms of mythical status. No, I was what some may call the substitute. I guess that was sort of a blessing since most folks wouldn’t be bowing in respect on sight (I never was one for those types of formalities anyways, despite it being a must for every mythical legendary).
The only good benefits of being Zeraora were two things. One, you won’t get distracted on the job very often. The second and more prominent aspect is that the superiors keep you on more relaxed rope. As one can guess, I liked the second aspect far more, it gave me a little time to think for myself.
Thinking about why or how the world reached its current state, was an act frowned upon by the higher ups. It was always purpose this and purpose that. Everybody agreed to this contract-like line of thinking, myself unfortunately included.
Despite this, I always had the strangest dreams, dreams of a very different body, at least from what could be recalled. These dreams always felt connected in the essence of chapters. Some were wonderful, while others featured hardships. Oddly enough, these dreams felt personal and precious. I couldn’t understand why, none of it made sense. For the longest time, I tried to bury these thoughts whenever I could. No, that’s not right, I was encouraged to do so (albeit indirectly). Yet nowadays, folks wanted me to “open up.” How could I explain any of it? How could I comprehend why no Psychic-Type can read my mind? Who could understand the pain I still felt from that…horrible nightmare? The thoughts and opinions I had are mine. Nothing could change that. That’s the way it should be.
However, when that youngling appeared that day, everything changed.
It was a work day like any other, aside from the fact that Zapdos decided to take yet another nap that lasts for far too long (and at a bad time too). So, I had to make up his work in the Sea of Wonders. The routine for storms was so dull. It’s always “make storm.” “Fire lighting here.” “Make some thunder there.” I tried to maintain my patience, but hearing that Zapdos decided to neglect his tasks AGAIN was the final straw. I can’t remember if it was just because of my sheer frustration at the news or if it was years of bottled-up rebelliousness. Or maybe, it was all the times I was teased and criticized by the others. Not meeting standards, a lecture came not long after. Near constant hours of work, days even. Even with the relaxed rope, I felt like the others were watching me more and more.
Yes, I get it, I didn’t garner a good reputation at the start. I’ve been told that, way too many times. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t change. Heck, they wanted me to change. Wasn’t nine years enough change? That was what I thought. Even the friendly faces, like the Lati twins. They tried to be nice…okay, Latias tried to be nice, but even I could tell they were somewhat fearful of my past interactions, especially with a certain someone.
Either way, I decided, against my better judgement, to implement a new strategy of my own. I was so sick and bored from the act of moving from place to place for the sake of duty that I’d gladly take a chance, any chance to keep myself from snoozing. (If something went awfully wrong, well Zapdos could just shove it down his spiky little beak! It would serve him right for napping. If there was no time for rest for chore-master errand boy Zeraora, then why should that lazy bird have time?)
So to accomplish my short piece of spite, I would base it off of one the dreams I had, which involved some type of dance. Why a dance? Honestly, I had no idea. These dreams were so annoyingly frequent! If someone I knew had to deal with such dreams for basically half a century and not be able to talk about them, I can imagine them being quite irritable. (Correction: not just irritable, but livid.) Needless to say in a long story made short, I had enough and gave in at long last.
If I were any of my predecessors, I would have most likely steered myself far, FAR away from any type of dance. Us Zeraoras were known to be fighters, not dancers.
On the subject of dancing, the first type of dance I could think of was a ballet. There were two reasons for this. The first was that I admired Meloetta’s skills in music. Her favorite dances were always in line with the ballet method. Plus, I only knew slow and graceful dances anyways. The only ones who knew of my secret admiration were Diancie and Meloetta, whose dwellings were far enough away from the Sea of Wonders. So, they wouldn’t notice my antics right away. The second reason was that ballet worked best with the flow of a rainstorm. Any other type would either be too chaotic or too irregular, making the others suspicious. Getting monitored by the higher ups was the last thing I wanted; besides, there was no way I would try dancing in front of anyone, not with my lack of experience.
Hence, why I had the bright idea to do it during my job. Why not? Everyone in the area would be scared to come out during the storm, every other storm maker is elsewhere, and Arceus certainly wouldn’t mind considering he’s busy with his so-called “more important business”, whatever that meant. Therefore, no one would even notice me if I did just one simple dance…I had no idea how wrong I was.
It was the early morning when I put my plan into motion. I stood on the shore of one of the islands. I briefly gripped the looplet wrapped around the bicep of my left arm before taking deep breaths to ease my anxiety. I was nervous since I was about to do something that would have been extremely embarrassing in public. I recalled what Meloetta and Diancie taught me about the art of ballet.
(Diance’s Voice: “Dancing would just be mindless prancing without the context found in music.”)
(Meloetta’s voice: “Music commands the flow, feeling, and pace of a dance. With just the right tempo, even a simple set of notes can become quite alluring.”)
With a simple preparation pose, I began to use Rain Dance, a skill I was forced to learn for the dull storm management. (Apparently, ancient predecessors of mine didn’t normally learn this attack.) Regardless, the storm slowly stirred itself. Rain began to pour in the area. By stirring static during the dance, I could charge myself up with electric power and store it in my body for later use, just in case I needed to defend myself a Thundershock; I could take stored charges beneath water with me if I wanted to. Not that I had much of a need to use that skill, but circumstances made me bored enough to figure it out for a few years; and all it costed were more days of sneezing at Diancie’s abode than necessary.
Once I charged up enough power, I aimed a Discharge toward the storm clouds before finally activating my magnetic field. With that done, the clouds charged themselves up; they were now under my control thanks to my species-brand field of effect. Normally, my magnetic field’s effect are negligible and mostly for aerial movement. (It pales in comparison to channeled Magnet Rise technique; the field can’t even defend from Ground-Type attacks. Magnet Rise would be nice, but noooo, type-immunity is for cowards. Zeraoras can’t learn Magnet Rise. Bah! What’s one more broken rule?) The point in all of this was that my magnetic field helped me do my job.
At this point, it demanded that I would periodically discharge the clouds and monitor their activity. This time around, I decided to super charge them in order to create make-shift music makers. The song I would use would come from the dream I based this plan on. Reflecting on this, perhaps I wanted some closure on the dreams that bothered me for so long; or maybe I was desperate to relive the innocent joy I lost. Or maybe it was something more. I couldn’t put a finger on it exactly.
Regardless, I played the memorized melody from my mind and projected it into the clouds though electrical signals. The storm then broke into a symphony of notes, which entangled my body into a complex, yet natural ballet. Each step drove me closer to the water’s edge.
Eventually, the music’s pace rose, sending my body off the shore. Using my magnetic field, speed, and sparks, I skipped and skated across the raging ocean waves, which enhanced the melody surprisingly. As I remained enticed by the song, I thought about what I was doing. There was no way I could have done this without practice, yet I felt like I’ve done this for years. I knew I felt like an oddball, but this was different. I regained a sense of pride and joy I was missing. I never felt more…alive. The feeling was addicting, which was probably why time passed by too quickly.
As I continued my ballet, an unexpected sight caught the corner of my eye during one of my slides. I turned my head to see a small, bird-like creature peeking their head above the waves nearby.
The color drained from the fibers of my fur upon seeing this (one could call it a powerful surge of pure embarrassment). (“L-Lugia?!?”) I thought. But upon further observation, I noticed something odd about the figure. It was way too small to be the Lugia, yet the shapes of the head and neck certainly looked the part. This all led to a new line of questionable thought, (“Is that a youngling? If so, what the heck is it doing here?!? How long was it watching?”). I had no time to consider these thoughts now, as I realized that I might have let this storm go on for far too long at this rate of intensity.
Wasting no time, I ditched theatrics and dashed toward the nearest island with a decent-sized mountain. My mind was no longer focused on the youngling, what mattered was stopping this storm. I remembered that keeping a storm on the ocean for too long did…something bad. I couldn’t recall what or why though. I sprinted for a while before finding a good place. It was a small island, but it at least had a high-enough mountain
After easily climbing the mountain, thanks to my lightning-fast running speed, I took some deep breaths before charging up some power. I used Discharge once more on the clouds. Ending a storm was tricky, but easy to do when one is strong with the lightning element. Disrupt the connecting signals, make a small air blast to push the clouds, and bam! The storm will disperse itself in no time. I made the clouds blast themselves apart as an emergency stop procedure. Within minutes, the storm clouds began to disperse, eventually becoming a clear blue horizon once more.
I checked the position of the sun. My storm was only supposed to last until just before mid-day. Judging by the sun’s position, it was now mid-afternoon daylight. My storm lasted twice as long than it should have. From my position, I looked toward the shore of the island in order to assess the damage. It didn’t seem too bad; so I thought a slightly longer storm didn’t hurt anything. At the same time, I had a sinking feeling that I was forgetting something I heard about. Regardless, I sighed in relief and then decided to sit where I was for a little while since the ordeal left me rattled.
As I stared blankly from the ocean-edge cliff, I thought to myself, (“I shouldn’t have done that, what got into me?”). I sighed and muttered to myself, “Calm down Zeraora, I might be overreacting a little. Just get out of the area and don’t speak of it.” As I got up and turned around, my worst fears came true.
That same Lugia was standing right behind me just…staring, with a starry-eyed look. Now that I had a good look at it, there was no doubt it was a youngling. The size difference was clear, its head was barely lower than my shoulder height. Either way, there was a long and awkward silence, at least on my end. The little one on the other hand, had an eerily joyful look on its face, with a slight hint of curiosity.
I had to ask how long she was witnessing the scene, but the words just wouldn’t come out. I mean anyone else would have just moved on, but this one, it was drawn to me almost. I tried to ask, “uhh, ummm. H-How long have you been-“
However, the youngling interrupted with her voice. She was clearly a girl based on the higher pitch, but I couldn’t process words. I thought it was a question, but as she asked, the world in my vision warped.
My head just started to ruthlessly pound with the most painful migraine and my ears started to ring.
The youngling spoke again, but this time with concern. This only made the pain worse, forcing me to stumble backwards. My mind then flashed images rapidly, both new and from my dreams. There were far too many to count.
At the pain’s peak, I heard a scream before everything went black; oddly enough, I didn’t feel the ground as I heard this scream, but I was incapable of thinking about it now.
As I laid unconscious in the darkness, I felt like the once pleasant dreams become nightmares that began to drag me down into the drowning abyss. I began to choke almost…wait choking? I tried to gasp, but no air came in. A thought hit my mind, (“I’M DROWNING!”). I exhaled and grabbed any type of breath I could. It wasn’t very much of a breath at all as I held my mouth shut.
As I opened my eyes, I noticed where I was. I was underwater, not just under water, I was far below the surface and moving downward at a rapid pace. I tried to move, but I found myself restrained. Looking around frantically, I noticed I was held in place by wings. I could think of one thing, the youngling. She must have dragged me down here. Why would she do that?!? It was unbelievable that she would do this. Did she seriously not know I couldn’t breathe underwater?
Regardless, only my right arm was free and I had no way of squirming my way out (well, no way that wouldn’t hurt the little one). Even if I lacked the decency, there’s no way I can survive down here. The surface was far too high up now and I could barely call myself a swimmer. All I could do was firmly grasp my mouth.
Mere moments became minutes of agony. My lungs began to heat up in the stress, demanding me to exhale and give them new air. Drowning really was among the worst possible ways to die. I felt my breath beginning to fade away as the two of us neared the seafloor’s darkness. At that point, I had no choice but to close my eyes, and pray the youngling was going to take me to a place with actual air. I felt the pace of the swimming beginning to pick up. The youngling began to speak out loud once, but words sadly could not be processed since the migraine appeared again. I gritted my teeth at this. As hard as I fought, I inevitably lost consciousness. My last thought played out as I felt something similar to a wave of energy, (“So, this is how it ends.”).
There was nothing at first, but then a warm and small light appeared in my vision. I heard an unknown, but oddly familiar voice speak up in a whisper, “No…not yet.” After a flash of light, the darkness crept in once more.
After what felt like forever, I began to feel something again. The weight of water was no longer present; in fact, there was a bit of a cold breeze. Air was the first thing that came to mind. Upon feeling this, I saw a fairly bright light as I opened my eyes. Then my other instincts came in. I proceeded to roll over, gag, and then cough up water. I was on all fours as I coughed and gasped for a while; there must have been a lot of water in my system. Eventually, I began to breathe in and savor the new air. It was a bit bit of struggle at first; in addition to having that salty scent found in seaside areas, the air felt unusually cool and humid. In some ways, I was breathing cold, but vaporized sea water. Regardless, once my breathing finally steadied itself, I sat on the ground; I still couldn’t get up, but being alive was more than enough. (“Good grief, that was too close.”)
The immediate area resembled a dock. The floor I sat on was hard, yet oddly smooth. It certainly didn’t feel like any dock-like structure I’ve seen on the surface. It wasn’t rock, nor was it wood. It felt more like, (“Plastic…Wait, plastic?!? What the heck is plastic?”). I shook my head assuming I was in some sort of dizzy spell.
A state of panic suddenly came over me. (“The Looplet!”) I grabbed my left arm to find that the looplet was still stuck tight on my arm. An overwhelming sense of relief came over me knowing I didn’t lose that treasure. (Wouldn’t know what to do if it was lost. It was too precious of a reminder of what was important.).
I laid on the ground and gazed at the sky…or at least i thought it was the sky; I saw the bright light, but something felt off. The sun wasn’t round at all. No, the light source seemed…linear, scattered even. I glanced away toward the edge of the port and noticed that the horizon had a transparent look to it.
As I saw this wonder, the Lugia offspring came into view, seemingly breathing a sigh of relief. Upon seeing her, I picked myself up. Standing was still impossible. The cool air in conjunction with my wet fur didn’t help either; this combination made me visibly shiver.
She spoke and I was finally able to properly hear her words, “Y-you’re alive?!? You’re actually alive!!! I- I thought- But the whole-” She seemed overjoyed for some reason, she stammered until her words were basically impossible to hear. She seemed to be tearing up.
Sadly, I couldn’t help, but stare in confusion. Even more confusing is that her voice no longer affected me in any way; though the headache was still present, but it no longer worsened. The most confusing part of it all was what she did afterwards.
She clutched me in a slightly warming, tight hug, as one would with a most precious child. I didn’t react at all, how could I? We just met. Maybe she was worried that I passed away during the trip. Right…the trip, how did I survive? I could have sworn I drowned.
Sensing the awkwardness I assume, the youngling backed away to wipe her tears. She eventually shook her head before speaking up. “I-I uh…I mean I was a little worried that you were down for the count. You see uh, I tried to drag you over to this place casually when Wailord saw me with you. Then he panicked telling me you couldn’t breath in the ocean like everyone else. So in a panic I was like, ‘AAHHHH!’ and I then whooshed you down here as quick as I could. Good thing you screwed up the ocean currents like that because you know…” She then smiled nervously, “…that would have been reeeaaal bad. Hehe.”
My head only slanted itself before I finally replied, “Um…thank you?” I couldn’t even begin to understand what she meant. There was too much information to process.
Before I could ponder more, a roaring shout sounded out from nearby. “Young one! What is the meaning of this?” The shout echoed authority, making it easy to recognize.
(“Is that the actual Lugia this time?”) I thought. (“No…that can’t be right. It had to be someone else…right?”) The realization then settled in; I wasn’t on the surface. I was in some sort of underwater domain. I broke a taboo, the taboo of wandering outside of my decreed area (my case being land generally). Legendaries were never to interfere in the affairs of or even enter areas outside of their major domain. I just broke that decree, which is a critical offense in every way. Sure, I wasn’t a fan of the system, but even I understood that carelessly entering a major domain outside of their own could easily throw the world out of balance. It wasn’t just me at risk here either, the youngling is also at fault too. Regardless of the reason, we were both in severe trouble.
Whoever thought that one simple act could throw so much out of balance. What could I do? (“What could we do?”) How could we even explain this to anyone? Either way, the whirling sound of air was coming closer. So, I had no choice but to stand up and turn around. From this point onward, I was no longer someone important that should be respected, I was what the likes of Kyorge would call, “An Impious Intruder.” An impious intruder with a nasty headache and nowhere to run.
Fragment of Knowledge:
Zeraora (the Fourth):
Decreed Areas: Land and Coastal Area
Age: 11 Myth-Years (111 Years)
Former Nickname: Galvan
He is the youngest recorded Zeraora bound by a Contract of Purpose. Orphaned at hatchling age, he was raised by another mythical and was carefully trained in the ways of mythical pokemon. Sadly, he at first had a rather shaky start, both during training and his first year of duty, which led to him garnering a a rather unfavorable and infamous reputation among the mythicals. Nowadays, he’s mostly seen as an errand maker and storm managing, paying the debts of his early actions. With his lightning-quick running speed and ability to control electricity, he is a formidable fighter as well.
Despite this, he has been known, for the past nine years, to isolate himself from everyone (even other legendaries), unless it’s for business and assignments. This behavior has made him virtually unknown in the eyes of the public, save for a few settlements and rumors. The only ones that seem close to him in today’s times are Meloetta and Diancie and even they admit he’s distant, always moving. (Quote from Diancie: “He never sticks around for very long, even when visiting either of us. You would be lucky if he stays in one spot for a moment more than a night’s worth of rest; even for Meloetta and I, such a stay from him is becoming more rare. In all honesty, we’re both worried about him.”)
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