//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: My Little Pokemon: Unova is Magic // by Halloweddisease //------------------------------// “Did everypony make it through okay?” I didn’t want to open my eyes. My head was throbbing like I’d walked into a door, and then proceeded to have a boulder dropped on it. Any effort it took to open my eyes only made the pain worse. I wanted to lie here, let it rest, and just come back to consciousness later. “It looks like it, though half of ‘em look like they’re unconscious.” Surely everypony would do fine without me after…after what, exactly? What had just happened? I couldn’t remember, which triggered a need to know. Groaning while trying to bear the pain, I opened my eyes, finding the agony to be less than what I expected. In fact, blinking in the sunlight, I realized the pain began to ease away. Twilight and Applejack turned my way. “Rainbow Dash!” Twilight exclaimed, “You’re awake!” I just nodded and put a hoof to my head, still in too much pain to respond. At least it was ebbing. It was a bit too much to bear as it was. All I could really do was watch as the ponies around me came to; Pinkie Pie had been awake before me, but Fluttershy and Rarity seemed to be in just as much pain as I was when they came back to the realm of the living. By the time Fluttershy was feebly flapping her wings, almost just as if to see if they still worked, I felt fully recovered. “So what is this place?” I felt bold enough to ask. As I asked, I took it in. The autumn trees, the small brick houses…it looked like fall in Ye Olde Equestria. Like, around when Equestria was a small budding country. All around us, there were…things…staring at us strangely. These “things” had to be the oddest sight I’d ever seen! They stood on two legs, as if incapable of the more efficient quadrupedal motion, and their bodies were devoid of fur, save for their manes. They were peculiar…and kind of ugly, to tell the truth. Funny that they’d stare at us like we were the oddities. We exchanged glances, nodding at Applejack, who approached a female-looking thing. “Pardon me, ma’am,” she began, “we were just, er, passin’ through and—“ “They’ve come!” the thing screeched. “They’ve come and they speak!” “What in tarnation…” Applejack muttered. We all looked at each other, but before anypony could say anything, we heard a rustling from the bushes behind us. The rustling grew louder and louder, signaling that the thing was coming closer—hopefully different from the “things” here in this village—and, as the creature came ever closer, Fluttershy let out a little squeak and hid behind Pinkie Pie, who happened to be the closest pony to her. Normally, I would have rolled my eyes at such a display of cowardice, even if it came from one of my dearest friends, but this time, I understood what she felt. I had already seen enough weird stuff to make me homesick for Equestria, and whatever came out of this bush was likely to be yet something else we were unfamiliar with. And boy, was I right. This…absurdity (since we’ve already used “thing” for the two-legged freaks) had a light brown body, with stubby little black legs—three pairs of them, like an insect, but this was bigger—and smoky white fur that covered the upper half of its body and draped one side of its face. Spreading out from its body were five horns, which for some reason or another reminded me of the rays that spread out from the sun and made me think of Princess Celestia. Its eyes were sky-blue, almost like my fur, and its face was black. Fluttershy, unable to help herself, approached the creature. “Hello, little one,” she greeted it. “What are you?” “A Larvesta,” the thing responded. “M’ name’s Sera. I need to get you all outta here and into Professor Juniper’s lab quick, before things get ugly! Follow me!” We were all so in awe that the thing—I mean, Sera—was able to speak that we stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, until it—I mean, she—spouted fire from her top horn angrily and shouted “C’mon now! We haven’t got all day!” Hurriedly, we galloped after Sera as she led us to the tallest building in the small village. She beckoned to one of us to knock, and I, unable to stand the curiosity welling up inside me, flew up and did exactly so. Almost immediately after I did, a plump thing with a short mane on its face motioned for us to come inside. I looked to the others, unsure of whether to trust this guy or not, and found the rest of them were looking to Twilight for guidance. Twilight shrugged and said “How do we know he’s not the one who sent an SOS to the princess if we don’t at least try?” What she said made sense, but I still didn’t like it, so, begrudgingly, I went inside. Inside the hut—or shack, or whatever you want to call it, these little shelters of stone and straw were not houses—were a cozy little fireplace and a cauldron bubbling above it. There was little furniture, save for a bed and a couple of tables here and there. The professor sat near the fire place, where he beckoned us to draw nearer. Thinking back to what Twilight said, I did, but not close enough that he could reach out and touch me. It took a while for me to notice, but Fluttershy was hiding behind me, cowering down so that he couldn’t see her. “So you are the saviors Celestia sent, are ye?” “I suppose so, sir,” Twilight answered for us. “Can you tell us what is going on here?” “That I can, oh that I can,” the professor chuckled. He peered around to see where Fluttershy was, and when he saw her frightened expression, he smiled in sorrow. “I suppose none of you have ever seen a human before?” He took our collective silence as a yes. “But that has nothin’ to do with the tale of what’s happened to the land we know as Unova…You see, we’ve always had a king, and his firstborn son is typically the one who rules the kingdom once he retires. The king rules with Kyurem, the great dragon Pokemon, by his side, and Kyurem is passed from ruler to ruler as time goes on. This time, the queen bore twin sons, and the king stated upon his decline from the throne that he wanted his sons to share it and make their decisions together. They did for the longest, until now…” “What’s happening now?” Pinkie Pie questioned. “Some spat over truth and ideals. Kyurem split into two separate dragons, Reshiram and Zekrom, and those dragons are tearing apart our fair country. “ “First of all,” I began, “what’s a Pokemon?” “Pokemon are things like this little Larvesta here. They come in all shapes and sizes and—“ “Sera,” Fluttershy spoke up. “Pardon me, missy?” the professor questioned, looking quite puzzled. “H-her name is Sera,” Fluttershy murmured, stepping further and further away from the man in front of us. “Ah! And how would you know that, pray tell?” “Well, to be quite frank,” Rarity responded, “she told us.” “Oh, of course!” the professor exclaimed. “Celestia must’ve given you the gift of tongues upon entry to this world!” “That seems likely. Alright,” Twilight responded, nodding as she took in this information, “what can we do to help?” “That, I’m not so sure about, my little pony,” Juniper downheartedly replied. “My only hope is that you can show these brothers that fightin’ isn’t all that life is about, and bring them closer together.” My mind immediately jumped to the time we defeated that monster inside Princess Luna—Nightmare Moon—and brought her closer to Celestia because of it. The two sisters were inseparable now, and I liked to think back on it with pride that we, the manifestations of the Elements of Harmony, did that. We saved Equestria for the first time in a long string of victories. Maybe, just maybe, we could save Unova too. “One thing I have to warn you about though,” Juniper started to say, “is that you can’t face these Pokemon or any others head-on. I don’t know if they’d obey you like they would a trainer, given that you’re not human and all, and even with magic, you’re unfairly outmatched. These beasts can summon the forces of nature at a mere whim. It takes you time to conjure a spell, yes?” “Yes,” Twilight answered half-heartedly, as the rest of us could see the despair on her face that came with not being able to use her magic. “But don’t you worry none,” Juniper went on, “most of ‘em are friendly, and won’t mind partnerin’ up with you all for a little adventure, especially if it’s to save their home.” “That’s good,” Fluttershy half-spoke, half-whispered. “At least we won’t have to worry about any of them attacking us, right?” “I wish,” the professor answered, “Pokemon are very sensitive creatures, and with all the turmoil, some will have gone mad with sheer hopelessness. It’s best to keep some with you, just in case. Sera, why don’t you go with them?” This confused me. “If you can’t understand her, then how in Equestr—I mean, Unova—can she understand you?” “That,” the professor said, “is a very good question. It seems that Pokemon are able to understand the meaning of what we say based on tone and inflection, and thus determine the subject of the sentence and respond accordingly. Now, Sera, would you consider joining our Ponyvillian friends?” “You bet!” Sera shouted, accidentally letting some of her flame spout into the air. She blushed, and then settled back on the rug where she had been. “I hope that was a yes?” the professor asked, turning to us. “It was,” Rarity told him. It dawned on me that she was being uncharacteristically quiet. I looked around to see if I could spot the reason, and within a few moments, I was pretty sure I had it: the filth. All around us, this cabin was messy and dirty. I lifted a hoof off the ground and looked at the grime on it before deciding I would just hover and keep myself from having to deal with this. Poor Rarity. I was tolerating this better than she was, but I was the one with the power to get off of it. Suddenly, she shot me a dirty look, which I assume was at first because I was flying while she was not and I knew she wanted to right about me, but when I looked down, I was able to see that I was blowing dust around. My face grew a little warm with embarrassment, and I settled back down on the musty floor. “Well,” the professor started with a note of curiosity in his voice, most likely at the little exchange between Rarity and myself,”you would probably be best if you headed out now. The more time that’s wasted, the more time the war has to grow worse. “ Twilight opened her mouth to say something—probably that we would do what he said—but I stopped her. “Does anypony else smell smoke?” I asked. “Now that you mention it…” Rarity began to say, but trailed off. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” whimpered Fluttershy, “o-or a dragon…” “This is no time to cower, girls,” Twilight declared, using her leader voice. “We need to go outside and face this!” But yet, as the door swayed open, I don’t think even Twilight was prepared for the destruction we witnessed outside.