Chapter 6 – Expect the unexpected

Leo opened his eyes, but he wasn’t in his bed. He still was a Pokémon, but weirdly enough, he was already standing in front of a big wooden entrance gate, about thrice as big as him. He had a bag with him, similar to the one Xavier bought yesterday. It was really confusing, but then he heard some faint noises from inside the room after the gate. Putting his ear on the gate, he started to make up a conversation between two Pokémon:

“Master…” one of the voices said. “Our troops failed to stop the advance of the intruders into this building, they may be entering this room at any minute.”

“Hmm, that’s… concerning. Will we hold on or do we have to escape?” Master responded.

“It will take them some time to get here as this building is hard enough to navigate in. But I do have some other good news, another of the trio died and there is only one left. It may be possible to get rid of him here, as he is most likely one of the Pokémon storming this building.”

“Another one? How did he die?”

“He died at the paws of Dax just now right outside the main gate in a battle. I didn’t see this one’s body kind of explode like the other one as I had to run, but he didn’t move at all, with him being in a pool of blood. I really doubt he lived.”

Master stood up. “Why did you run?! You know that confirmation is vital to our plan!”

“Well, Dax got killed and as a result, our defence started collapsing very quickly so I had to run. Those pesky mons’ will never understand what we are doing here.”

“No one spotted you on the way here? OR YOU DIDN’T EVEN MANAGE TO DO THAT!”

“N-no, t-there is no reason. We may even have the advantage now and try to ambush them in this building.”

“Good point. Remember, we are only after the last one, only kill the others if they get in our way.”

For some reason, this conversation was making Leo increasingly angry. He had a really big urge to open the door and he was just about to do it.

“Leo, stop! Wait for us, we are getting close to you.” He heard a voice in his head.

This voice seemed weird, but also normal to him at the same time. For some reason, he knew exactly how to answer.

“They’ve done awful things to us and now you want me to waste this opportunity, while they are preparing an ambush for us?! What kind of hypocrite are you, Xavier?! I’m going in.”

“You don’t stand a chance!”

Leo ignored him and proceeded to open the gate by trying to ram into it. For some reason, inside there was only a very bright light that blinded him, making him incapable of seeing inside. Suddenly, he felt as if he was slowly elevating into the air as he stepped into the light. 

Leo blinked, the sight of a familiar dark void surrounded him. His bag was missing from his side.

“What happened? Where am I?  This is a dream, right? That… that felt so real! ” Leo kept asking in his head.

There was a dark silence surrounding him, but he was expecting Dialga to answer his questions even though he didn’t say them out loud.

“Dialga, are you here?” Xavier asked into the void.

…There was no response.

“Please, Dialga answer me! I know you were the one who brought me here!”

“Was he?” a deep, brisk voice answered him.

“Huh?”

Suddenly, the dark void was dimly lit by a small ball of light, Leo felt being lifted into the air right after. As his altitude was increasing, a dark ball attacked from on top of him, sending him back to the ground with great force. Leo couldn’t get up after that.

“You are still pathetic, just like the rest of you humans,” the voice chuckled. “I will see it myself to make sure the end of your reign is over in this world as it is needed.”

“Ah!” Can’t stand up! It hurts too much…

“It’s useless to fight, but unfortunately I cannot kill you in this place. We will see each other again in the real world, I can feel it and then, I will kill you, as you all humans deserve. But there is one thing that is really interesting about you humans. You sometimes have those “visions”, which seem real to you as if they were actually happening. You can only see them in dreams, but I’m interested if they actually entail anything. But from what I’ve seen, they don’t seem to do anything, only making you even more scared about the future. You really are just, useless creatures”

“We… are… NOT useless!” Leo shouted with a pained voice.

“Look, now. You have to depend on Dialga when you are here, you can’t fight back in any way and even with the wishes of all legendary Pokémon, you will still die before you get a chance to meet with me. There is no hope for you nor for your Pokémon aligning with your cause”

Suddenly, more light balls started to appear around Leo. The void was suddenly getting brighter and brighter.

“Oh, he finally decided to come to you. Well, we will see each other again, but with you laying on the ground while blood is all over you, begging me for mercy!”

“You will not interfere with us!” Leo heard a familiar voice of Dialga “The human will stay and abolish you from the darkness.”

“Ahhh!” the dark voice shouted in pain. “It’s not over, it will never be!”

Leo could sense the other presence leave the void. He turned his attention to Dialga’s voice. 

“Th-thank you…, though it, still hurts.” Leo groaned in pain.

Suddenly, the light around him started to be brighter to the point it was hard for him to see. In an instant, all of his injuries were healed, with his blood slowly disappearing.

“This should make you feel better, though it doesn’t matter much here as this pain is only simulated, your body is not injured in the real world,” Dialga informed.

“Thank you,” Leo finally managed to stand up. “This feels a lot better.”

“I’m deeply sorry for your experience with that dark creature. I wanted to finish some things before calling you here, but I didn’t know that he would do it first. This is also very unlike him…, he normally prefers to stay in the shadows spying in silence.”

“Was that the Pokémon you were afraid of overhearing us before?”

“Yes, but he is not exactly a “Pokémon”. He was born from some kind of unnatural state, it’s hard to define what he is now, but he tries to take the shape of a Pokémon. But now he should be knocked out for some time, so I can start telling you about more important things.”

“Okay, please elaborate.”

“As you most likely know by now, there are four main islands in this world, with one being split in two. That one is split because of the vastly different personalities of the Pokemon on each side. There have been some border disputes, but for now, both of sides are fully open to each other. It also didn’t help that Pertubatio Island has been many times accused of trying to take the control of the Island, especially the aquus ignis side, the southern one. That’s why there have been increasing tensions between the sides of the island and you need to find a way to ease the tensions and somehow finally unite them. If you don’t do it, I fear that creature you just saw may finally take form in the real world and devastate the entire population by taking all of the natural artefacts. It would, be the end of the ecosystem.”

“Wait, so those artefacts have a connection with the world’s ecosystem? So you do know something about them”

“Let me remind you that last time I didn’t openly speak about them as that creature was most likely overhearing us”

“Oh…, you’re right, sorry.”

“Those artefacts, as far as I know, there are five main-typing ones each on a different island, which also represents where the island names come from. You shouldn’t talk about this to many Pokémon as they would most likely react uncontrollably once they would know anything from this ancient language”

“So you know this language?”

“Yes, as I’ve been living in this world for a very long time. Those five types are fire, water, grass, ground and dark. Each of these artefacts are protected by the Pokémons of a given island, but most don’t know their true power of them. As you have seen in the vision I showed you first when you came here, there are more artefacts than just those five, maybe there is even one for every typing. But for now, you shouldn’t focus on artefacts. You need to first convince every Pokémon to solve their disputes and tell them that there is a bigger threat coming towards us, which will be very hard to handle while they are against each other”

“How I’m supposed to do that?”

“You need to travel to the Adunatio Island and gain some kind of leadership and/or respect. Then, everything from there should go swimmingly enough”

“Are you sure? I don’t think it’s that simple. I’m going to that island tomorrow, but…”

The void began to brighten up.

“Oh, you are already waking up. Well, good luck. Remember that first impressions are what matters the most.”

The light fully engulfed Leo and he suddenly felt a lot different with his eyes closed. When he opened them, he found himself back in Xavier’s home. He got up from his haystack and he saw Xavier scouring through the chest, bagging some of the items inside his bag.  Xavier didn’t notice him waking up. Mischievously, Leo thought of trying to walk up to him and try scaring him from behind, but he didn’t know if Xavier would like that sort of prank.

“Nah, let’s go with it. Xavier doesn’t seem so far to be that type of personality”

Leo slowly and silently walked up to Xavier. Xavier still seemed really preoccupied with scouring through the chest for items. Leo quickly jumped onto him with his front legs landing on Xavier’s back.

“Boo!” Leo shouted as his legs clearly hit Xavier.

“AHH!” Xavier screamed in shock as he barely managed to stand up with Leo hitting him.

Leo’s legs slip off Xavier and he accidentally landed on the items that Xavier was putting inside his bag.

“What were you thinking!? You think that was funny!?” Xavier shouted.

“You know, I couldn’t resist scaring you a little,” Leo chuckled. “Your reaction was pretty funny on your face.”

“I… Fine, you got me,” Xavier relented. “But why are you suddenly so playful?”

“I don’t know, it just seemed like a dumb idea and I wanted to do it”

“Just, let me finish packing and we will depart to the port.”

“Do you know where it is?”

“It’s just a little past the city, but I guess you never went that far into it.”

“Do you need any help?”

“Nah, I’m almost finished. Or maybe you can help me with putting all of those items back into the chest that I don’t need after I finish with this.”

“Okay, that seems easy enough.”

A few minutes later Xavier put on the bag with all the items, and Leo helped him put all of the unnecessary items back into the chest. There were many different books as well as some kinds of cloth and very specifically-looking items.

“What are those items we are putting in? Some of them look like gloves and some like extra armour.”

“Oh, those are exclusive items. They only work for specific Pokémon and they don’t have any use for others. I’ve kept them in hope of trading them with someone for theirs so I can get my exclusive items but to no avail. So now, they will just stay in the chest. Before you ask, no, there is no item for you I’m sure of it”

“Oh, that’s a letdown.” He sighed,” Let’s just finish with this quickly”

Leo and Xavier put the remaining items from the ground into the chest. Cyndaquil also commanded Shinx to help him put the haystacks inside it. Xavier unlit the torches and put them inside the chest. Now, his home felt really empty, with only a lonely chest remaining. Leo noticed that Ryder’s scarf was no longer in its place, but he assumed that Xavier put it in his bag.

“Let’s get out of here, we have a long day forward,” Xavier pointed out. “I will mention them in detail when we start travelling to another island.”

“Okay, let’s go then.”

Leo and Xavier crawled through the hole one last time. He started walking towards the path to the town, but Xavier backtracked for a second. Leo noticed it and turned towards him.

“Did you forget something?”

“Well, you know. Ideally, I wouldn’t want that place to be found so can you help me move this rock to at least partially cover the entrance?” Xavier pointed at a rock a little further away from the entrance. 

“Are you sure we can move it? It seems pretty big.”

“We won’t know until we try.”

“Fine.”

Leo and Xavier went up to the rock. Xavier started pushing it with his arms and Leo was thinking over if it was fine doing that with his head. He decided to help and he was some kind of ramming the rock. After a minute or so, they managed to cover the entrance with the rock. It left the both of them exhausted.

“Huff…, we can take our time walking.” Xavier decided.

“Agreed.”

Leo and Xavier slowly made it onto the path and to the crossroads. Both of them were still a little exhausted and not really keen on having any conversation. When they made it, they saw a Pokémon standing in the middle of the crossroads. It seemed to Leo from a distance that it was Amaya the Audino standing in the distance as if she was waiting for something. When she saw them, she turned her attention to them.

“Hi, Xavier and Leo.”

“Hi, what are you doing out here?” Xavier asked.

“Cora asked me to take you to the port. There is a shorter way there, so we will take it instead of going through Leafstone town”

“Are you sure it won’t involve going through any dungeons or something?”

“Yeah, the path should be perfectly safe.”

“Okay, we will follow your lead, Leo?”

Leo in the meantime was thinking that something about this was not right, but he couldn’t tell why. He kept thinking, ignoring Xavier for now, until he remembered.

“Wait, weren’t we supposed to meet with someone near the port?” Leo noticed.

“Cora decided to change some plans and as I didn’t have anything better to do as no one was injured, I came here instead” 

“…Okay, that makes sense. Let’s go to that path.” Leo encouraged, but still kept his skepticism.

“You go first, I will guide you along”

Leo and Xavier started walking in the direction that Amaya showed them. Xavier didn’t believe that she would just leave Ronan like that after yesterday, as those injuries didn’t seem to be able to heal after just one day. He suddenly stopped walking, taking a deep breath and sending a small burst of fire towards Amaya. She wasn’t expecting this at all and she was immediately knocked back a little, burning for a few seconds. 

Leo got furious. “Xavier, WHAT DID YOU DO!? Why did you attack Amaya!?”

“Because she isn’t Amaya!”

“What?!”

After the burning on Amaya subsided, she started glowing purple and suddenly decreased her size drastically. When the glowing subsided, it turned out to be a completely different Pokémon to Leo. It looked like a grey fox-like Pokémon with red and black accents. It had triangular ears with black insides and it had a tuft of fur with red on top of its head. It had a ruff of black fur around its neck and four short limbs tipped with red. It seemed to be a really mischievous Pokémon, liking to trick other Pokémon. 

“Of course, that’s a Zorua!” Xavier shouted, preparing to attack once more.

“Oh, don’t you dare!” suddenly Braxton the Empoleon revealed himself from the hill. He was overlooking the debacle. “Can we first talk before things turn violent?”

“Yeah! Like you deserve reasoning after you wanted to deceive us with the help of your friend here!” Leo joined in the conversation by taking an intimidating posture. Out of anger, electricity was already starting to be visible all over his body.  

“He is called Osman and yes, with him we wanted to set up a trap for you, but you saw through his disguise. We wanted to knock you out and take what’s rightfully ours with the least amount of bloodshed by just paralyzing you, but I guess that’s not happening. So now, I have a proposition for you,” Braxton put forward one of his wings. “Hand over everything you have in that bag and we will forget we ever had this discussion in the first place.”

“Heh, if like that’s going to happen, right Xavier?” Leo moved closer to Xavier making them stand next to each other, while Braxton and Osman are opposite of them. 

Osman readied up. “Time to put the kids in the garbage where they belong.”

Furious, Leo rushed into Osman with a Quick Attack. The fox easily dodged, swinging into the air with his aura glowing purple. Seeing the opportunity as the human tripped from a failed attack, Osman retaliated with his right paw glowing purple, hitting Leo’s head from the top and knocking him hard into the ground. Leo tried gasping for air, but Osman hit Leo hard again in the head, knocking him back significantly. Leo fell unconscious.

In the meantime, Xavier faced Braxton with the penguin quickly forming a whirlpool of water with his wings. He tried to sent it flying towards the mouse, but he quickly rolled into Braxton and knocked him back hard. Xavier noticed Leo bleeding all over from his injuries, so the cyndaquil ignited his flames and smoke screened the entire battlefield. This gave him just enough time to get to the human.

Xavier shouted in desperation. “Wake up! Please, you need to move from here!”

“Uh…,” Leo regained consciousness. “What happened?”

“We have to get out of here, you are completely busted after that. Here take this bottle. It will only last for a few minutes, but that should be more than enough to get us out of here.” Xavier opened a bottle with a gold marker. “Here, drink this.”

Leo nodded his head and with the help of Xavier, he drank the contents of the bottle. His body was suddenly revitalized by its contents and he stood up. At the same time, the smoke disappeared and they saw Osman shocked. Leo could tell him apart from Braxton as he could see his tail not transformed in the back. 

Osman growled, “Braxton! Let’s combine our attacks.”

“Will do!” Braxton reaffirmed his position.

“Quickly, we need to counter it with a collaboration of our own!” Xavier shouted.

“But how?!” Leo was confused.

“Just aim the attack that you used on me last time in the middle and I will join up.”

“Don’t blame me for the results!”

Electricity was crackling all over Leo’s body and it started gathering in one place in front of him, creating a yellow ball of electricity. Xavier in the meantime started doing some kind of circle with his fire while trying to hold it together until Leo released his own attack. Braxton got his head up in the air and it seemed he was taking a deep breath, while Osman is summoning many small dark balls of light next to him.

“Take this, you… corpses!” Osman didn’t know what to say as he was too focused on attacking.

Leo sent an electric ball while Xavier hit it with his flame wheel that he created. Braxton and Osman tried to fend of the ball by attacking with their beams respectively one with water, the other with a dark pulse. All of those attacks clashed with each other and violently exploded. Leo noticed that right after, the fox was lying on the ground knocked out.

“Osman?! What happened?!” Braxton moved to him once he noticed. 

“Common this is our chance. Run!” Xavier grabbed Leo by his leg, dragging him to run. Leo complied and started running. 

Both of them quickly moved back to the crossroads. When they made it, Leo couldn’t catch his breath and decided to stop for a second. Xavier followed as soon as he saw.

“I can’t… hold on… Xavier. This is, so much pain…, it feels like… I will faint any… second now”

“The town is not that far, please, you can do it. They won’t be able to do anything to us once we reach it.”

Leo tried walking towards the town, sometimes falling a little to the left and right. After a few minutes, they saw a hill just outside the town. Surprisingly, they saw Cora walking towards them. 

“Hey! I came here since-“ Cora stopped herself,  “What happened for Arceus’s sake to you Leo?”

“We…” Leo suddenly collapsed onto the ground unconscious. 

“Leo?! Wake up! We are almost there!” Xavier tried shaking Leo with his arms. 

“Quickly!” Cora rushed to Xavier and Leo. “Help me put him on my back, we need to take him to the temple.”

Xavier slowly managed to put Leo on Cora’s back, and they slowly entered the town. Once inside, many of the townsfolk Pokémon were looking conspicuously at them. It turned out that Kai was also in the town and he spotted the trio in the city. 

“What happened?!” Kai rushed to them “Do you need help?”

“Get Amaya, tell her we need to treat Leo with a head injury. Quickly!” 

“Okay, I’m going.”

Xavier looked worried at Cora. “Do you want my help, Cora?”

“No, I think you should focus on dealing psychologically with whatever you both went through back there.”

“Okay” Xavier got lost in his thoughts.

Cora and Xavier quickly got to the archway of the temple and Xavier went up to hold the door for Cora to pass through. They quickly navigated through the building to the medical wing. Once they entered, Xavier noticed that Ronan was still in bed, but he seemed to feel way better than yesterday. Ronan noticed Leo’s blood everywhere on top of his head. 

“What happened?!” Ronan asked in shock.

“Questions for later, we need to get Amaya here fast. Where is she?”

“I’m here,” Amaya answered as she entered the room. “I’ve brought some medicine. Put him in that bed opposite Ronan, there should be some bandages in the drawer next to it.”

Cora put Leo on the bed, while Xavier scoured through the drawer for bandages. He took out some and Amaya in the meantime, sat down on the side of the bed where Leo laid and started to use some kind of white cloth that was wet with some kind of odd-smelling substance on Leo’s injuries. She put some kind of herb mixture that was in a bottle on top of the drawer. The blood was quickly cleaned off Leo by Amaya and it became apparent that most of his injuries were on the forehead.

“This should take care of the blood,” Amaya put the cloth on the drawer. “Hand me over those bandages please.”

Xavier picked them up. “Here you go.” 

She quickly covered all of the head injuries with bandages. Ronan came from his bed to see what was happening and Kai also came in. Amaya took the herb mixture that was in a clear glass bottle and fed Leo with it. After a few seconds, this made Leo for some reason wake up.

“Uhh…, my head.” Leo groaned in pain, correcting his position in the bed. “What happened?”

Cora sighed in relief. “You collapsed just outside the town and so I took you here.”

Xavier also relaxed. “You made everyone worried sick, especially me.”

Leo felt guilty. “I’m sorry. I was and am still pretty weak after that encounter.”

“Yeah, what happened back there Xavier?” Cora asked, “Who did this to him?”

Xavier looked at Leo, frowning. Leo nodded, and so Xavier began to explain things to Cora.

“It was disastrous. So, we were going to the port, but then a Zorua tried to trick us into thinking that he could bring us faster to the port and that he was the one whom you asked Cora to help us there. It turned out to be a friend of Braxton, a Pokémon that holds grievances against me and Leo after Leo forced him to escape. So all of that turned into a battle and Leo got injured a lot… So, I gave him an adrenaline booster and he helped me hold them back enough for us to escape. And then, you found us at the path.”

Ronan was shocked. “Who is Braxton? We need to report this incident to the authorities.”

“But there are no authorities on this island, Ronan,” Kai pointed out. “We will just have to watch out for him and not let him leave this island.”

Xavier tried remembering what he looked like. “He is an Empoleon with a diamond rank, but at this point, I’m questioning if he got that legitimately. He said he was a solo explorer, but he also brought Zorua with him this time.”

Kai tuned in. “Did Zorua mention its name? Could be helpful to our investigation, but it will still be hard to catch him, because of his abilities.”

“He called himself Osman. Amaya, how is Leo overall?”

“He seems to be fine, though those bandages will have to stay there for at least a few hours. I hope you are not planning on any travels.”

Cora sighed. “Yeah, about that. They were going to the port to travel to Adunatio Island. They said they wanted to go there today, so is there any way you can allow them to continue with their plan?”

“You know that I can’t let Leo go in this state? Just look at him. Does he really seem capable of handling the travel fatigue at the same time?”

Xavier begged for permission. “Please, Amaya. We want to start our searches as soon as possible on the island.”

“But you are risking this injury only worsening. It could cause some serious damage to the head and make him permanently confused.”

“It’s okay Amaya,” Leo put his paw on Amaya’s paw. “I feel better already. We really want to move today or all of our preparations will be for nothing. Please, just let us leave today.”

Amaya wanted to refuse. “…I… Fine, but let me give you some more medicine that will stimulate the healing faster. You should be able to take those bandages off when you will be getting close to the island.”

“Thanks!”

Amaya got off the bed and out of the room to grab some more medicine. At the same time, Leo tried getting up from the bed.

Leo still couldn’t look straight. “Uhh, I still feel a little dizzy.”

“You will be fine!” Xavier reassured. “If you could handle standing against those Pokémon with me, there is nothing that you can’t handle.”

“Well…, with your help at least.”

“And that’s why I’m here!” Xavier smiled.

Leo managed to get up from his bed and Amaya got into the room while she was holding some kind of wooden cup. It looked and smelled like to Leo that it was some kind of berry mixture. 

“Drink this, it will help you recover,” Amaya commanded.

Leo quickly consumed the contents.

“So now, we need to move. Cora, you are coming with us to the port?” Xavier asked.

“Yeah, I sure do.”

Ronan smiled. “I will also come with you if Amaya agrees. I’ve got nothing better to do at the moment”

Amaya agreed. “Yeah, at this point, you look more recovered than Leo, so you can go. See you later then Xavier and Leo!”

Kai also farewelled. “Yeah, see you later! I will be staying here for now. I need to do some paperwork to start looking for those two outlaws.”

Xavier and Leo nodded and together with Cora and Ronan, they exited the medical wing. They went through the temple and got out to the main path. Then, Cora led the way and got everyone to the port. It looked like a very unpopular port, with only a little wooden structure stretching towards the sea. Next to it in the water, there was a sea turtle-like Pokémon, that resembled a plesiosaur. It was mostly blue, with dark blue spots and a cream-coloured underside. It had tightly curled ears, similar to Amaya, with a horn on its head. It had a long neck and four flippers sunk in the water. It also had a large, grey shell on its back covered with blunt knobs.

“Hi, Harmony!” Cora greeted the Pokémon. “Sorry it took so long, but Leo got injured and we had to let him recover a little.”

“Hi, Cora!” the Pokémon floating on water answered “Is that Leo with the bandages? Hi! Cora told me your names yesterday.”

“Hi, I’m sorry, but, I’m not really keen on doing a conversation.”

“That’s okay!” Harmony smiled. “You both are good friends of Cora, so I’m going to give you a discount. You will pay once we get there. Now, hop on! We have a long journey ahead of us”

“So this means goodbye for now,” Cora summarized. “Can you come here Leo for a second closer to me?”

“Yeah,” Leo got closer to Cora. “What is it?”

To Leo’s surprise, suddenly, Cora jumped with her front legs and comforted Leo around his neck. He didn’t know how to react, but he didn’t try to break her off, instead, he showed her a smile. 

“I didn’t tell you earlier, but I think it must be hard to be stranded in this world as a human” Cora whispered to Leo’s ear. “Remember, I will always support you at every turn. Even if it means breaking some established international treaties. Just remember, align with the correct side or the consequences may be great for every Pokémon in this world. Your presence here may change everything forever.”

“Thank you, and I will keep this in mind,” Leo responded quietly. 

Cora broke up her arms from Leo and he walked back next to Xavier. 

“Take care, kids. I know you can do it,” Ronan smiled waving his arm.

“We will finish what you started. I promise you that Ronan,” Leo reassured. “Goodbye!”

“See you!” Xavier farewelled. 

Cora and Ronan looked at Leo and Xavier as they got onto Harmony.  Leo was still sceptical of the comfort of the shell, so he first let Xavier get onto her. Xavier seemed fine with sitting next to one of the knobs. Leo followed the same and surprisingly to him, after also sitting on the shell, he didn’t feel any discomfort, despite the appearance. 

“So, Kyogre town or Seastorm town?”

“Which one is closer to the Southern side of the island?”

“It would be Kyogre town then. Better get comfortable, it’s going to take a while.”

Leo and Xavier started travelling across the sea to the unknown lands of Adunatio Island for Leo.

“Across the sea? There is nothing that will prevent me from overlooking you both Leo and Xavier…, not even this blue border. I will catch up with you, one way or another…”

End of tome 1